With The Matrix Resurrections coming to theaters this week, we’re getting more insights into why director Lana Wachowski chose to return to the world of people trying to break free of a simulated reality prison.
At the IGN-hosted “green carpet” premiere of the film in San Francisco Saturday, Wachowski dished about why now was the right time for her to bring the series back.
“It wasn’t planned. It was not orchestrated in any way. It was just…something happened in my life and I needed to process some grief. And I really kind of needed to have all these people around who knew my parents,” she said.
During that same interview, Wachowski also explained why there is a much heavier emphasis on comedy sprinkled throughout the movie than in past instalments, despite it taking inspiration from a place of grief.
“I’ve made a lot of movies with a lot of varied tones, I think that’s like a part of me and Lilly do,” she said. “We don’t really like single-toned films and I know they’re very popular, but I kind of like a really wide range. And I thought it was like another dimension to the Matrix, another like thing to bring to the Matrix that wasn’t so much there before.”
Back in September, during a screenwriting panel at the International Literature Festival in Berlin, Wachowski explained that she suffered a lot of loss in recent years, including enduring both of her parents and a close friend passing away. While she was experiencing troubled sleep and bouts of crying due to those losses, she said, “my brain exploded this whole story.”
“I couldn’t have my mom and dad, yet suddenly I had Neo and Trinity, arguably the two most important characters in my life,” she said at the time, saying the jolt of inspiration was “immediately comforting.”
The Matrix Resurrections comes the theaters and HBO Max on Dec. 22.