The original Matrix film broke new ground in the film industry with iconic effects such as “bullet time,” which helped it grab the Oscar for Best Visual Effects all the way back in 2000. These effects were more “studio-based,” so The Matrix Resurrections VFX supervisor Dan Glass was tasked with making this film “feel more real.”
Lana Wachowski directed this film on her own as opposed to previous films where she co-directed with her sister Lilly. “The need to upgrade was even present in the story. That said, Lana’s vision was that it should feel more real,” Glass said when speaking to THR. “The Matrix itself in the earlier movies was deliberately studio-based, very inspired by graphic novels. Lana wanted this rendition of the Matrix to feel more familiar to our real world.”
Glass and his team had to be very delicate with their effects to balance the line of real and CG. One such challenge appeared when they were required to de-age lead actors Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss in some scenes. “We created a de-aged CG head. We had the cyber scans of their heads and textures, CG models from the earlier movies archived, but they had to be upgraded and up-rezed to modern standards,” Glass said. “We very carefully patched because we wanted to keep things like the mouth, teeth, eyes, which are so hard to reproduce digitally, and they’re really a core part of the performance. Those are retained from original photography, and then the rest of the face is just slight changes in bone structure and skin quality.”
Glass definitely made the film feel more based in reality, and his talent was pivotal in helping The Matrix Resurrections achieve success, such as its latest milestone of hitting $100 million at the global box office.