Actor Laurence Fishburne, who played Morpheus, doesn’t feel like he lost out by not participating in Matrix: Resurrections with stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss.
Then it’s alright, we guess.
Resurrections, the fourth installment of the Matrix franchise that brought the series back after over 20 years, didn’t especially impress Fishburne or many other critics.
When speaking with Variety, Fishburne was directly questioned about if he felt excluded from the action. He answered, “No, not really.
It wasn’t as horrible as I anticipated, according to Fishburne. “And it didn’t live up to my expectations. But in my opinion, Carrie-Anne and Keanu did a great job. That’s what I was thinking, too.”
Resurrections included the return of Reeves as Neo, Moss as Trinity, Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe, and Lambert Wilson as The Merovingian, but Fishburne was conspicuously absent.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II portrays an AI version of the Morpheus character in Resurrections, however the reason why Fishburne was not asked back is still unclear. Even Fishburne admitted in 2021 that he had no idea why he hadn’t been approached to take on the part again.
Even though Resurrections attempted to explain Morpheus’ absence, many believed that his absence was actually due to his death in the canonical 2005 video game The Matrix Online.