Warner Bros. is getting creative with its promotions for The Matrix Resurrections, as the first teaser trailer has been released. While offering no actual footage, the trailer points people to a website that then offers a customized teaser for the movie and reveals that the first full trailer will be released on Thursday, Sept. 9.
The Matrix Resurrections is the fourth film in The Matrix franchise, and the first one since the original trilogy ended with The Matrix Revolutions in 2003. Multiple members of the original cast are returning for the film, most importantly Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, but also Jada Pinkett Smith, Daniel Bernhardt and Lambert Wilson (the Merovingian). Joining the cast will be Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Neil Patrick Harris, Cristina Ricci, Priyanka Chopra Jones, Jonathan Groff and Jessica Henwick.
Lana Wachowski is returning to direct the sequel, but without her sibling Lilly, who opted to skip returning to the franchise.
The teaser trailer that is offered on YouTube, and which you can watch below, shows the familiar red and blue pills that were introduced in the first film as Neo’s options on whether to learn more about the Matrix or not. The brief teaser (only 15 seconds) simply posits that “The choice is yours” before the pills are taken over by the familiar Matrix graphics and info on when the full trailer will be released and asking people to visit Whatisthematrix.com.
If you go down that rabbit hole, you will have the option to pick between the red and the blue pill, and this is where it gets cool. Depending on the time of day and what trailer you click, you will see one out of a possible 180,000 (reported) clips featuring a different voiceover from one of the film’s actors and unique clips from the film.
A The Matrix Resurrections trailer was shown during the recent CinemaCon event in Las Vegas. It is not confirmed that the full trailer that will be released on Sept. 9 is the same one shown to CinemaCon attendees, but there’s a good chance that it is.
The Matrix Resurrections is scheduled to be released on Dec. 22 in theaters and simultaneously on the HBO Max streaming service. The Matrix Resurrections will be available on the streaming service for 30 days after its release and can be watched at no additional cost to subscribers. However, only those that subscribe to the $14.99 version of HBO Max can watch the first-run Warner Bros. movies.
Warner Bros. has deployed this hybrid strategy with HBO Max for all of its 2021 films. In addition to The Matrix Resurrections, subscribers can still expect films including Malignant, The Many Saints of Newark, Cry Macho, Dune and King Richard to be available for streaming. The policy is not continuing into 2022, however.
