Friday, March 17, 2017

5 Great Directors Who Could Totally Pull Off a Matrix Reboot

Ah yes, the 1999 classic film so obviously about queer identity and culture that eventually was co-opted by edgy libertarians and soon after the misogynistic alt-right. You're quite familiar with The Matrix and so are we. The tale of liberating oneself from the constraints of the artifice laid in front of us. It was considered the current generation's They Live in many respects, but it seems that as 1999 creeps away into the recesses of our memory, the twentieth anniversary of this cinematic masterpiece upcoming, it is perhaps time to find another sci-punk blockbuster to encapsulate our contemporary fears. We could, of course, pour money into a new franchise or even just one-off to become the next genre classic, but how can we count on that in the age of pre-existing characters and plotlines topping the box office in unwatchable schlock? What we need is an MCU imported director to really do the nuanced and unbelievably intricate world of The Matrix justice. There's a lot of canon to consider, carefully curated and written by two fantastic artists so we must be cautious in transposing it to our current times.

The question then arises: who could possibly take on this Herculean task? Who could create our generations punk masterpiece with the same level of crazy formalism and pop philosophy? We at BLACK CIRCLE have found five such masters of form who we believe could take on the task.

1. The Wachowski Sisters

Two of Warner Bros. craziest long-stayers, the Wachowski Sisters have spent the last twenty years making some of the finest science-fiction and action films we've seen. From the candy-colored, furiously fast Speed Racer to the tense-as-fuck neo-noir Bound to the revisionist YA saga-starter Jupiter Ascending, no one can say something like The Matrix is out of their range. There's been speculation on whether or not the Wachowskis can handle a property like The Matrix and it seems that perhaps the studio feels the same way. Is there any evidence that they could pull it off? Are there, perhaps, three currently existing films with their name on them in the Matrix saga? Would these films happen to be some of the most lasting trilogies in cinematic history? Would what they brought to this property still hold up and be heavily quoted, referenced, and even parodied today? No one can say for sure. 

2. Lilly Wachowski

A long-time director for Warner Brothers, Lilly Wachowski helped bring-to-life the newly emerged cult classic Speed Racer, whose following is as dedicated as one can get for a revisionist anime adaptation. If that's enough, another film she worked on, Jupiter Ascending has started to see a cult growing as well, with fans being attracted to its radical gender politics, pop economic theory, and revolutionary take on capitalism and commodification of body, all themes that would work perfectly in the world of The Matrix. The only downside of working with such a creative director would be her possible insistence on adding her own creative stamp to The Matrix trilogy, and we wouldn't want someone messing with another creator's work beyond recognition, would we? 



3. Lana Wachowski



If Lilly is unavailable, thankfully she has a sister! Lana Wachowski ended up working on some Matrix related content like helping to write vignettes for The Animatrix and overseeing the canon content of the Matrix comic-book collection. She also helped direct all those fine films that Lilly was doing for Warner Bros. during the 2000s. What would make Lana the perfect fit? Probably her familiarity with the canon. It's not like she and her sister conceived, wrote, directed, and produced the original trilogy or anything, but her work on the immense amount of extracinematic but still canonical material perhaps gives her the perfect insight on bringing The Matrix to life once again.



4. Lilly & Lana Wachowski



Here's a crazy idea (stick with me on this one), what if we combined 2 and 3 and had both Lilly and Lana work together? It's not unprecedented! They did work together on their debut film Bound along with their first script for the Richard Donner directed Assassins. Although this was back in the 90s, they also collaborated together on films like Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas right here in the 21st century. Perhaps the key to their success actually lies in the fact that both of them work so well together, but that's just a thought.





5. M. Night Shyamalan




It's a BLACK CIRCLE list. We're basically required to put him here. 

Warner Brothers, and any studios who read this, if M. Night takes your project thinking he's going to direct the next King Hu/Akira Kurosawa epic, of mysticist action and humanist philosophy, please don't fight with him. He knows what he's doing. He also probably watched whatever shitty anime you're asking him to adapt for the screen. 

Also, don't force him to put white people in it. 

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