Was the production of ‘The Matrix’ cursed?
You’ve heard of the curse on the set of William Friedkin’s horror classic The Exorcist and Richard Donner’s devilish 1976 film The Omen, but there’s another Hollywood classic that saw major disruption and even tragic disaster under coincidental circumstances. The year was 2001, and the Wachowski sisters were just about to change the landscape of action cinema forever with sequels to their highly successful Matrix movie.
A revolutionary sci-fi classic, The Matrix is set in the far-flung future where robots have taken over the world and are using humans as batteries, plunging them into a deep sleep and an alternate reality so that they won’t kick up a fuss. Starring Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Laurence Fishburne, the success of the film changed several Hollywood practices and now stands as a totem of innovative 21st-century filmmaking, as well as an unlikely vehicle for a transgender allegory.
But, the film’s sequels were riddled with disaster, with the first of many tragedies happening when the R&B star Aaliyah died during a plane crash, with the late superstar having filmed half of the scenes involving her character Zee. Understandably, this event caused seismic shocks throughout the cast and crew, with production being pushed back considerably until Marvin Gaye’s daughter, Nona, took on the role instead.
The 270-day shoot in Sydney was punishing, to say the least, and things got a lot worse when the events of September 11th rocked the world. Then, if this wasn’t tragic enough, about a month after 9/11, Gloria Foster, who played The Oracle in the sci-fi series, died of diabetes, leaving yet another gaping hole in the cast and in the hearts of her fellow colleagues, friends and family.
To make matters even worse, several of the special-effects houses used to create the visually-stunning sequels went bust during production, causing the budget to rocket. Having promised spectacular action scenes, the production was spending £25million on 17-minute helicopter battles, leading the film to experience some pretty significant funding problems, which subsequently forced lead star Keanu Reeves to cough up £9.5million of his own money in order to get the sequels over the finish line.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing for Reeves, with the actor struggling with some pretty major life events. In 1999, his girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, had given birth to their daughter stillborn, a tragic incident that led to the pair splitting up soon after. In the same year, Reeves crashed his motorbike, resulting in broken ribs and a ruptured spleen, and then when filming started for the sequel, he quickly injured his foot during an action scene.
Years later, Syme was killed in a car crash in LA, and Reeves discovered that his sister’s leukaemia had returned after battling the disease for a decade.
Indeed, the tragic life story of Reeves is part of the reason why he’s so respected and revered in modern cinema. Even before the aforementioned events, the actor had been dealt a bad hand, with his father walking out on his family when Reeves was just three years old. Years later, his best friend River Phoenix passed away at the mere age of 23 after experiencing a drug overdose.
Take a look at the trailer for The Matrix: Reloaded below, one of Reeves’ finest cinematic achievements.
