How The Matrix Created the Modern Blockbuster

The film, however, became a critical darling and a commercial success, winning four Academy Awards, winning $467.2 million at the box office and spawn two sequels (a third would follow 22 years later).

Beyond its success, however, The Matrix’s lasting impact was how it sparked a revolution that would ultimately shape the modern blockbuster.

Before he became “The One,” Keanu Reeves was far from the action superstar we’re used to seeing today.

More like this

Although he had some success with Speed ​​in 1994, the Bill & Ted actor was better known for his air guitar skills than his action skills. He wasn’t even the Wachowskis’ first choice for the role of Neo, only landing the role after Will Smith, Brad Pitt, and Leonardo DiCaprio all turned it down.

Like those considered before him, Reeves looked nothing like the leading men who ruled the box office in the ’90s.

The decade was dominated by Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Con Air and Cliffhanger – muscular films filled with vest-clad, square-jawed superstars performing physical feats in stories focused more on pyrotechnics than plots.

However, thanks to the gravity-defying physics of The Matrix, Schwarzenegger and Stallone would soon be obsolete.

Drawing heavily on the choreographed kung fu and ballet threads pioneered by Hong Kong action writers like John Woo, this was a new breed of cinematic brawling that demanded a new type of hero. ‘action.

However, it’s not just the physical that changed after The Matrix – cinema as we know it was forever altered after the high-profile success of the Wachowskis.

It was on-screen action unlike anything audiences had ever seen before. Thanks to technical advances such as “bullet time” – the slow motion effect that became the film‘s calling card – The Matrix ushered in a new era of cinema where live action and CGI could be seamlessly intertwined. And the public appreciated it.

So much so that the success of the film opened the floodgates to a new wave of adaptations that studio executives had never been able to bring to the big screen until now.

In many ways, The Matrix was Hollywood’s first blockbuster superhero film. As difficult as it may seem in an era dominated by comic book movies, there was a time when Hollywood tried (and largely failed) to bring spandex-clad heroes to the big screen.

Movies like Richard Donner’s Superman, Tim Burton’s Batman and Sam Raimi’s Darkman had struggled to escape their inherent implausibility, caught between the cartoonish origins of their primary-colored protagonists and the relentless realism of live-action cinema.

For all its cyberpunk aesthetic, The Matrix was every bit a comic book movie. It may have looked cooler, but the film still followed a costumed hero engaging in gravity-defying acts of bravery. It even ends with Neo taking flight as Rage Against the Machine’s Wake Up roars over the final credits.

It was an evolutionary leap that showed Hollywood that moviegoers could put aside their disbelief and invest as much in physics-defying special effects as in live action.

Released alongside universe-expanding comic books, animated shorts, and subsequent sequels, The Matrix also proved that it was possible to maintain audience attention beyond the auditorium. It was the first step on a road that ultimately led us to Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and the birth of Marvel’s all-conquering cinematic universe.

Learn more:

The matrix, However, it wasn’t just about the spectacle, but also the storyline.

He was influenced by everything from the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard and Descartes to the teachings of Buddhism and the Bible. There are even references to Japanese anime, gender identity, self-realization, and the intricacies of computer programming language.

The end result was a collective “whoa” from the audience who, like Keanu Reeves’ hero, had their eyes opened to a whole new world.

This was mainstream entertainment that didn’t spoon-feed us. Instead, it was complex and challenging, something that could be dissected and reinterpreted endlessly in the growing communities that used dial-up modems to connect with like-minded fans in early online forums.

Without The Matrix, we won’t get cerebral cinema like Christopher Nolan’s Inception or Tenet. We don’t get the kind of action that audiences loved in John Wick, nor the advances in special effects that directors like Zack Snyder and Michael Bay would later hang their hats on.

One could even argue that without The Matrix, we would never have had an ambitious breakout on the small screen either. Indeed, it’s impossible to imagine the stimulating fantasy served up by series like Lost, Westworld, Black Mirror and Severance without the influence of the Wachowskis.

A quarter of a century later, the influence of The Matrix is ​​still felt. It was a transformational event that, like its on-screen hero, had real-life ripples. Like the pill-based Morpheus Paradox, it offered the audience the choice to free their minds. It showed us a door to a different world and we walked through it collectively.

As a result, it not only inspired the next generation of filmmakers, it also gave them the template for the modern blockbuster, which they continue to follow to this day.

Check out more of our movie coverage or visit our TV guide and streaming guide to find out what’s on.

Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for just £10 – subscribe now. To hear more about TV’s biggest stars, listen to The Radio Times podcast.