matrix revolutions - full spoilers topic

[HaPagan]

epote μπορείς να μας κάνεις μια τεράστια χάρη ;;; Μπορείς να συγκεντρώσεις όλα αυτά τα spoilers σε ένα αρχειάκι word και να το ανεβάσεις κάπου έτσι ώστε να τα διαβάσουμε όλα από εκεί ;;; Αν μπορείς βέβαια !!!

 

7 Νοεμβρίου ήξερα εγώ ότι βγαίνει το Μatrix Revolutions !

[epote]

hapagan:

 

opos leo kai sto proto post ayto tha kano, AFOU teleioso to postarisma, giati afenos den exei stamatisei oute aytos na postarei akoma, afeterou exei kamposa

[dim_b]

7 Νοεμβρίου ήξερα εγώ ότι βγαίνει το Μatrix Revolutions !

 

5/11 στην Αμερική και σε κάποιες άλλες χώρες.

7/11 στην Ελλάδα εκτός αν τα Village μας κάνουν τη χάρη (αφού είναι δική τους παραγωγή) να την προβάλλουν από την Τετάρτη.

Πάντως, μετά την απογοήτευση του Reloaded, δεν έχω την ίδια αγωνία που είχα τον περασμένο Μάιο (όχι βέβαια ότι δε θα το δω την πρώτη μέρα ).

[LL_NEO]

Διάβαζα εχτές σε ένα διαφημιστικό, ότι η Warner φιλοδοξεί να είναι το Matrix Revolutions, η πρώτη ταινία που θα προβληθεί σε όλο το κόσμο ταυτόχρονα και μάλιστα σημείωνε ότι αν όντως συμβεί αυτό να είμαστε έτοιμοι για ξενύχτι(μιας και αν η πρώτη προβολή στην Αμερική είναι στις 10 το βράδυ, εδώ θα είναι λογικά στις 6 το πρωι. Φραπεδάκι ανα χείρας....

[HaPagan]

Mα καλά τρελοί είναι !!! 6 το πρωί!!!

Θα πάω στην πρώτη βραδυνή παράσταση .

[LL_NEO]

Ερώτηση (αν και ξεφεύγουμε απο το θέμα ολίγον τι, αλλα αναμένοντας το επόμενο spoiler-ζαντολάστιχο, ας πούμε και καμιά κουβέντα). Πόσο δύσκολο θα ήταν για τα Village να βγάλει μια ειδική προβολή με εισητήριο κάπου στα 15 ευρώ, όπου θα δείξει σερί και τα τρια επεισόδια.

 

Εγώ πάντως αν γίνει αυτό για την ....πρωινή παράσταση, θα το πάω σερί απο το βράδυ με κανα δυο πορωμένους (να μπορώ να γλαρώσω και ελεύθερα στη θέα της Θεάς) και το βράδυ να πάω με την κοπέλα μου.

[epote]

akolouthoun TRELA spoilers TRELA apokaliptete h ekvash ths maxhs tou neo me ton smith!

 

____________________SPOILERS SPOILERS_______________________________

Ok, im here to bring more spoilers. First of all, as ive said, i dont care if you dont believe me or whatever. I Speak the Truth... you dont have to believe if you dont want to... bottom line.

 

 

Answers:

 

Me_Me_Me: Is it possible to have your mind inside a machine body?

Possibly...

 

Hardline: So with Trinitys Re-Evolution (Man, Machine, Program)... are you saying Neo humped a machine??!

HAHAHAHAHA....

 

cnsprcy_x2024: STT, you've said that the orange squidy paralizes Neo. From the trailers it appears that the orange scenes(Neo walking in the machine world, Smith flaming in orange, and the squidy passing through neo)is how Neo feels/sees the machines in the real world. Is this correct?

Yes

 

Additionally, I believe you said that the Oracle shifting her appearacne is explained. Is here change of appearence due to her self deletion?

The self-deletion happens WAY after the change of appearance

 

Personally, your referece to the ending being similar to the end of Revalations is is interesting. This would be a logical ending considering "The machines were created in man likeness"(-Morpheaus M1. What I really want to know is how this satisfies the humans. Does Trin and Morph accept their so-called heaven of enternal containment in the Matrix?

You'll see...

 

How do the main characters react? Do they completly "forgive" or coexist with the machines?

Everything begins with choice...

 

verbalkint:

STT, you said that all the other "ones" had the same powers as Neo. However, you also said that each time the Matrix is reloaded the agents powers are based on the previous "one"'s. If that is the case, then wouldn't all of the agents have had the same powers as Neo?

 

No, i did not say that each time the Matrix is reloaded that the Agents get the powers. The Agents are taken from the programming of the VERY FIRST Systemic Anomaly. The machines cannot duplicate Neo's code unless Neo gives it himself (like he accidentaly did to Smith), as well as Neo remains human, so he can free his mind. Therefore, the Agents will never be as strong as an Anomaly.

 

Nephil: What goes down in Club Hell? A fight breaks out, and then the Trainman tries to escape - and Trinity, Seraph and Morpheus chase after him to get to Mobil Avenue?

 

Not exactly, The Merovingian gives him up for Trinity sparing his life. Then he willingly takes Trin to Mobil Avenue.

 

jconley78: Neo cut his hand on the sword in Reloaded when fighting in the Chateau?

Neo is human no matter what...

 

worms3man: How does Neo's talk with Councillor Hamann about machine/humans come into play? Does he know something?

Hamann doesn't know anything. The conversation basically sets up the revelation that machines and mankind must co-exist in order to survive.

 

DavidWong: Lemme guess... the Dolan Plot.. Sure....

 

Miltiades: Thank You.... i can't put whole conversations. I saw the freakin movie 2 1/2 weeks ago... ONCE. Give me a break... Very enjoyable post bro, thank you.

 

 

WARNING.... REAL MATRIX REVOLUTIONS SPOILERS BELOW!!!!

 

REAL SPOILERS (SUPERBRAWL SYNOPSYS)

 

The battle with Smith and Neo rages on all over the city. Theyve wiped out tons of buildings and torn up entire street blocks. They battle all over the Matrix ripping each other apart. They both confront each other in the very same china shop that Neo battle Seraph in Reloaded. After some dialogue, Smith begins to rip Neo up in battle. People in Zion are watching this battle. Smith is pounding on Neo, until suddenly, in the real world, Trinity awakens from her unconscious state in the Matrix, eyes wide open. She says "No", and suddenly her eyes close and her body limps in the real world.

 

Neo continues to try to fight, but Smith's unbelievable speed is overcoming him as hes getting pounded. He does his famous "come get some gesture", and continues to get pounded, to the point where he is bleeding from his mouth. Smith laughs at the fact that he is human, and Neo catches him with a good one, punching Smith in the mouth. Neo mocks him, saying Smith is just the same. Smith gets angry and attacks Neo again in a fury, but Neo reverses and kicks Smith through a window. Smith comes back and grabs Neo, then Neo gets thrown out of the tea shop. They both fly up, battling in the air till they reach Metacortex. They take on each other hard again, and all of the sudden, Trinity appears inside of the Matrix. Neo looks at her in awe. Trinity says that the war has to end now, but Smith does not care, as Smith runs up and says his own freedom means more to him than any human. Smith hits Neo and does the "diving" trick on Trinity, but instead of destroying her, he merely takes over her code. Neo goes insane and attacks Smith with furious hits, but soon stops.

 

Since Neo can feel the machines, he realizes that Trinity is indeed alive, within one of the machines in 01, plugged into the Construct. Her brain was downloaded into a machine. He can see her body, and he can see the mechanics outside of her (kinda like the Smith / Bane golden fire). The machines have managed to bring her essense back to life, with a machine inside, a human body, and a programmed mind. Unfortunately, now Smith has taken her. Neo battles it out with Smith again, and Smith has the advantage because everytime Neo hits Smith, Trinity feels the pain.

 

In Zion, the Zionists (including Morpheus, Ghost, The Kid, and Niobi) are watching this battle. The Kid watches in awe of the unbelievable destruction they are causing, and he too knows Trinity is feeling pain. The Kid screams "enough". The Zionists turn and The Kid does the exact same thing Trinity did, jumping into The Matrix in the midst of the Superbrawl. Neo turns to him, screaming at him to leave. The Kid won't have it, and attacks Smith. At this point, The Zionists are shocked at how this is possible, and we hear Morpheus do his famous "He fights for us" line. The Kid gets taken down by Smith easily, and Neo continues his fight. Neo saves the Kid from being assimilated, and continues fighting. The Kid gets up and does the diving trick on Smith, pulling Trinity's code out of Smith. Trinity and The Kid fall back, and Neo starts to rip Smith up, but Smith counters. Once again he says "It is Inevitable". Suddenly, the Kid goes inside of Neo, and Neo gets powered up. Neo attacks Smith with a few hits, then sticks his hand deep inside Smith's chest with a punch. Smith starts to shake, and Smith slowly starts to take over the code of Neo, and it goes back and forth as they are both being taken over by each other, transforming into the famous eerie silver liquid. The Kid leaves Neo's body and jumps into Smith. Smith starts to weaken and Neo starts to take over the body of Smith. Smith eventually is taken over, and explodes. Neo flies Trinity out of there and they both land safely on the roof of another building.

 

 

Thats enough for now... the Aftermath of the Superbrawl will come SOON...

 

 

Believe or Not Believe, that is the end of the Superbrawl.....

 

 

 

Peace

 

_____________________________END SPOILERS___________________________

 

 

kai telos:) edo kai peripou mia vdomada o typos den exei postarei. alla an deite ti flaming efage pali kala tha peite.either way an prokipsei kati kainourio tha eidopoihso:) sto endiameso tha ftiakso to arxeiaki word me ola molis mporeso:)

[Edgar]

ena proxeiro doc pou eftiaksa einai edo

etsi, gia na ta exoume mazemena, mexri na ftiaksei ena pio simorfomeno doc o epote

[epote]

o STT ksanamilise, anisixitika ta osa leei gia thn aksiopistia tou. einai psilodedomeno pleon oti einai kata ti valtos...

 

idou *btw meta tha akolouthisei ena TERASTIO post*

 

----------------------SPOILERS-------------------------------------

 

 

Speak_The_Truth wrote:

Thank you very much for welcoming me back...

 

First of all... lemme explain exactly what i lied about... and why...

 

The Twins... ARE in Revolutions...

 

Why did i Lie?

I wanted to know exactly how badly you guys wanted them in there. Apparently my sources were right, fans really loved the twins. I was simply curious to get the feedback.

 

The Superbrawl...isn't all true

The one i posted was a nice little hacked one. Basically its like this... The Kid isn't in the Superbrawl, but Trin is... Remove the kid.. and add some more elements (which ill get to), and you get the TRUE ending to the Superbrawl...

 

I just put that one to see how many kid fans we have or if you guys would like it. It was a job i was SENT to do.. nothing more.

 

Everything else... True... except for the Mobil Ave explanation. Soon ill fully give everything out.

 

Why did i lie? Just curious. Most of it was right, but the order in the events were jumbled. Trust me, the real answers are there, youve just gotta look for them.

 

Note: I haven't lied to any of you... Any question which was asked to me, i honestly tried my best to speak the truth without spoiling it. However, i cant recall at all lying to any person here. Thank You

 

As for the people who dont want to believe me, i dont blame you. But i am not here for you.... im here because people are interested in what i have to say, if you dont want to believe... then dont. I got no problem with it.

 

 

Anyways, Thank You Very Much

I am indeed back, but i wont post as much as before.. just wait for it

 

----------------------------end spoilers------------------------------------------

[HaPagan]

Tελικά ο τυπάς είναι αξιόπιστος ή όχι ; Όχι τίποτα αλλο αλλά να ξέρουμε τι διαβάζουμε .

[epote]

hapagan:

 

oute kai skata ksero:P exo mperdeytei se apisteyto vathmo:P aytos leei oti exei twins tha production notes oti den exei alla oti yparxei architect:P tragiko:P ego ta grafo etsi kai allios kai vlepoume:P

 

if nothing its a good read

 

WARNER PRODUCTION NOTES

[epote]

Here's another long post... It's the Matrix Revolutions Production Notes straight out From WARNER BROS. Long post indeed.

 

 

Everything that has a beginning has an end.

 

 

At the stunning conclusion of The Matrix Reloaded, Neo (KEANU REEVES) took another step forward in the quest for truth that began with his journey into the real world at the outset of The Matrix – but that transformation has left him drained of his power, adrift in a no man’s land between the Matrix and the Machine World. While Trinity (CARRIE-ANNE MOSS) holds vigil over Neo’s comatose body, Morpheus (LAURENCE FISHBURNE) grapples with the revelation that the One in which he has invested a life’s worth of faith is merely another system of control invented by the architects of the Matrix.

In The Matrix Revolutions, the final explosive chapter in the Matrix trilogy, the epic war between man and machine reaches a thundering crescendo: the Zion military, aided by courageous civilian volunteers like Zee (NONA GAYE) and the Kid (CLAYTON WATSON), desperately battles to hold back the Sentinel invasion as the Machine army bores into their stronghold. Facing total annihilation, the citizens of the last bastion of humanity fight not only for their own lives, but for the future of mankind itself.

But an unknown element poisons the ranks from within: the rogue program Smith (HUGO WEAVING) has cunningly hijacked Bane (IAN BLISS), a member of the hovercraft fleet. Growing more powerful with each passing second, Smith is beyond even the control of the Machines and now threatens to destroy their empire along with the real world and the Matrix. The Oracle (MARY ALICE) offers Neo her final words of guidance, which he accepts with the knowledge that she is a program and her words could be just another layer of falsehood in the grand scheme of the Matrix.

With the aid of Niobe (JADA PINKETT SMITH), Neo and Trinity choose to travel farther than any human has ever dared to go – a treacherous journey above ground, across the scorched surface of the earth and into the heart of the menacing Machine City. In this vast mechanized metropolis, Neo comes face to face with the ultimate power in the Machine world – the Deus Ex Machina – and strikes a bargain that is the only hope for a dying world.

The war will end tonight, with Neo’s destiny and the fate of two civilizations inexorably tied to the outcome of his cataclysmic confrontation with Smith.

 

Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures and NPV Entertainment, a Silver Pictures production, The Matrix Revolutions, starring KEANU REEVES, LAURENCE FISHBURNE and CARRIE-ANNE MOSS. The film also stars HUGO WEAVING and JADA PINKETT SMITH.

The Matrix Revolutions is written and directed by THE WACHOWSKI BROTHERS and produced by JOEL SILVER. The executive producers are ANDY WACHOWSKI, LARRY WACHOWSKI, GRANT HILL, ANDREW MASON and BRUCE BERMAN. The director of photography is BILL POPE, A.S.C.; the production designer is OWEN PATERSON; the editor is ZACH STAENBERG, A.C.E.; the music is composed by DON DAVIS; the visual effects supervisor is JOHN GAETA; and the costume designer is KYM BARRETT.

The Matrix Revolutions will be released worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, and in select territories by Village Roadshow Pictures.

This film has been rated “R” by the MPAA for “sci-fi violence and brief sexual content.”

http://www.thematrix.com / AOL Keyword: Matrix Revolutions

 

 

THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS: THE FINAL CHAPTER

 

In 1999, the Wachowski Brothers and producer Joel Silver unveiled The Matrix, a visionary fusion of brutally elegant action and densely-layered storytelling. The filmmakers not only electrified audiences with audacious visual innovations, they created a provocative action film that ponders the essence of reality and identity, illuminating the choices we must make and the strengths and weaknesses that compel us to make them. The Wachowskis envisioned the epic story they unleashed in The Matrix as a trilogy, and approached the production of the second and third installments as a single film that would be presented in two parts.

With the May 2003 release of the second chapter, The Matrix Reloaded, the writer-directors tunneled deeper into the sprawling saga’s mythology and presented revolutionary new visual effects technology that redefined what is cinematically possible. Driven by furiously breathtaking action sequences, Reloaded elaborated on the first film’s themes of philosophical and technical alienation in the continuation of Neo’s treacherous journey toward greater truth and understanding of his pivotal role in the fate of mankind

To date, The Matrix Reloaded has earned over $735 million in worldwide box office, making it the highest-grossing film of 2003 and the highest-grossing R-rated film in history, both domestically and internationally. Additionally, Reloaded scored the record for the largest single week ever with $158.2 million and reached $150 million in a record-breaking six days domestically; internationally, it is the 10th highest grossing film of all-time, and is the first film in history to gross more than $100 million in a single weekend.

The staggering box office of the first two installments of the trilogy and the vast amount of thought devoted to the examination of the Wachowskis’ work is evidence of the extent to which the filmmakers have hacked into the collective consciousness with their provocative and challenging filmmaking. “They’ve created an epic story, told it in a visionary way that revolutionized entertainment, and created a thinking person’s action trilogy,” observes Matrix producer Joel Silver. “You can enjoy the films on a purely visceral level, and if you want to go deeper, there are some very profound ideas to consider.”

The Wachowskis believe that at the heart of the Matrix films is the hope of integration – the synthesis of our finite knowledge of what is with our infinite beliefs of what might be. “These films explore the search for truth, the cost of knowledge, the quest for understanding our lives and the sacrifices we choose to make,” Keanu Reeves suggests. “Evolution is another important theme of the trilogy. In the first film, it’s Machines versus humans, who are trying to free themselves from the world of the Matrix where the Machines have enslaved them. In Reloaded and Revolutions, you see the perspective of Machine-created programs trying to hide in the Matrix when they face deletion in the Machine world, while the humans face extinction by the Machines that are trying to destroy Zion. Ultimately, the Machines’ survival is threatened as well, and the humans, programs and Machines have to find a way to cooperate to ensure their survival.”

The visual and intellectual concepts that were introduced in The Matrix and further explored in Reloaded culminate in a tour de force of epic action and resolution in the trilogy’s final explosive chapter, The Matrix Revolutions. “With Revolutions, the Brothers deliver an incredibly powerful payoff to their story,” Silver says. “They’ve resolved Neo’s journey in a way that is emotional, intelligent, humorous and fun and gives you a true sense of what this concept was all about. It’s very satisfying, yet people will still be driven to analyze and discuss it.”

At the cliffhanger conclusion of The Matrix Reloaded, Neo lies in a comatose state aboard the rebel hovercraft Mjolnir after using his powers to terminate several attacking Sentinels – an inexplicable feat given that he was not jacked into the Matrix during the deadly confrontation. In Revolutions, Neo learns the truth behind the source of his powers and why he is able to use them in the real world. Reeves sees Neo as “a lightning rod, a searcher and a witness. In acting out his quest, Neo makes himself available as a conduit for a very powerful energy force, which translates into these extraordinary powers.”

While Neo’s powers have grown exponentially, so too have those of the rapacious Agent Smith – to the point that he has become a bigger threat to the Machine world that created him than the citizens of Zion who are fighting for survival against the Machine army. Neo realizes that in order to save both Zion and the Machine world from total destruction by Smith, he will have to go farther than he ever imagined. “It’s the last unknown, it’s the last unanswered question in his journey,” Reeves says. “He has to see his quest to the end, where it leads to, whatever it takes. That’s why I love Neo. He wants peace and he’s willing to do anything for it.”

Laurence Fishburne recognizes a sense of commitment shared by both actor and character. “Keanu is unlike anyone I have ever met; he’s a deeply sensitive, keenly intelligent guy,” observes Fishburne. “He completely dedicated his life to Neo during the making of these films, and it’s been a real joy to walk through this whole amazing experience with him.”

As Neo follows his path to its ultimate conclusion, a disillusioned Morpheus continues to believe that his former student will find a way to end the war, despite the Architect’s startling revelation in Reloaded that the Oracle’s Prophecy may simply be another system of the Machines’ control. “In Revolutions, even more of Morpheus’ humanity comes to the surface,” Fishburne reveals. “Morpheus is still the guy that you will follow because you believe in him and feel safe with him, but he’s not the same formidable figure we met in the first film who seems to know everything. His belief system has been shaken, and in his struggle to come to terms, he becomes more human.”

An equally fierce believer in Neo, Trinity is inspired by their profound connection to follow her own path. “One of the things that I love so much about Trinity is just her complete and total commitment to the love that she has for Neo and her belief in him, and how their love strengthens her and softens her at the same time,” Carrie-Anne Moss says.

“The Wachowskis have done an incredible job of crafting Neo and Trinity’s relationship,” Silver adds. “Their connection is such a strong part of the trilogy, especially in Revolutions – it connects the characters, it connects the story and the films. The love they have for each other is what it’s all about.”

Given a second chance at life at the end of Reloaded, Trinity puts her fate into Neo’s hands once again when she chooses to accompany him to the Machine City. “Trinity is very proactive, as we know,” Moss says, laughing. “She isn’t going to be told that she can’t do something, and she’s not going to sit around and wait to see what happens to Neo. So she finds a way to help him.”

Another crucial member of the Zion resistance also chooses to help Neo – but Niobe’s support is the hard-won result of an inner journey that begins in Reloaded and is depicted in greater detail in the video game Enter the Matrix. “When we meet Niobe in Reloaded, she doesn’t have faith; she doesn’t believe in anything but herself,” Jada Pinkett Smith says. “Her ego is a beast and she’s extremely arrogant. Over the course of the story, her faith grows in Neo and in Morpheus, and she begins to surrender to the concept that there is something beyond intellect, beyond logic, beyond her.”

Though Niobe does not believe in the Oracle’s Prophecy, she offers her ship to Neo when he makes his decision to travel to the Machine City in search of peace. As Pinkett Smith sees it, “Niobe respects Neo and stands by him because of the things he has done and the sacrifices he has chosen to make. She doesn’t believe that he’s the One, but she believes that if anyone can do it, he can.”

Thrust together under life-and-death circumstances, Niobe and Morpheus find that their deep yet distant connection still rings true. “Niobe was attracted to Commander Lock because he’s smart, but I think her heart is truly with Morpheus,” Pinkett Smith muses. Adds Fishburne: “The way the Brothers wrote the third act of Revolutions, where Neo and Trinity are ascending while Morpheus and Niobe are descending and the world is coming to a catastrophic end, is truly beautiful and romantic.”

Meanwhile, Agent Smith’s appetite for destruction grows more ravenous as he becomes increasingly more powerful. “In The Matrix, Smith starts off as a very rigid character with a very strong, defined mission that he has to accomplish,” Hugo Weaving describes. “During that journey, he starts to feel human feelings. He starts to feel anger and jealousy. He starts to smell things and he starts to have a hint of what it’s like to have humanity inside him. And he hates that. He sees it as a weakness. In Reloaded, he’s accepted these powerful feelings more and more and he starts to relish them. His ego has expanded and he’s quite literally been liberated. In Revolutions, his ego runs rampant – he has evolved from wanting to be free of the Matrix to trying to take over the world.”

Underneath Smith’s cruel depravity, notes Weaving, “he’s a very dark character but I’ve always thought he was funny. There were humorous elements to Smith in the first Matrix which seemed to come straight out of Larry and Andy’s character and I loved that they expanded those elements in Reloaded and Revolutions. I enjoyed the experience of playing Smith immensely.”

Because Smith’s ego and power threaten to overwhelm both the real and Machine worlds, the Oracle chooses to help Neo – a decision that costs her dearly. As it is explained in the video game Enter the Matrix, the Oracle’s appearance (or “shell”) has been terminated by the vengeful Merovingian, so she takes a new form in Revolutions.

In developing the scripts for Reloaded and Revolutions, the Wachowskis discussed the idea of changing the Oracle’s physical appearance, but decided instead to have actress Gloria Foster reprise her role from The Matrix in the second and third chapters of the trilogy. When Foster passed away after completing her scenes for Reloaded, the Brothers returned to their original idea for the path of the Oracle. “Gloria was a remarkably talented, charismatic woman,” Silver recalls. “We are extremely proud that she will always be remembered for delivering two of her finest performances in The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded. Fate forced the Wachowskis to alter the path of the Oracle to address Gloria’s passing, but they were able to deepen the character’s story as a result and I think it’s very effective.”

“It was wonderful to see the Brothers find a way to honor Gloria’s death and continue growing the story in their changing of the script,” Moss agrees.

The filmmakers cast respected stage and screen actress Mary Alice (Oz) to play the Oracle in her new form. “I’m not a big science fiction fan, but there is something in the Matrix films that I find very spiritual,” says Alice, who starred opposite Foster in the Broadway play Having Our Say in 1995, playing sisters who live to be over 100. “My life has changed from being in it.”

“Mary Alice came in and did an amazing job of presenting a living, breathing Oracle,” says Fishburne, who portrayed Alice’s son in a play they performed in together in New York when he was ten years old.

Zee, a citizen of Zion who plays a crucial role in the defense of the city against the Machines’ relentless siege, has even more at stake than most: she lost both of her brothers, Tank and Dozer (key members of Morpheus’ crew in The Matrix), to the war with the Machines, and her boyfriend Link has put his life on the line to serve as Morpheus’ operator. “Zee is strong and determined to accomplish what needs to be done without letting fear get in her way,” says Nona Gaye. “She feels very protective of Zion, and Link is all she’s got left. She wants to make sure that they can have a life together.”

Completing the main cast of The Matrix Revolutions are Lambert Wilson as the Merovingian; Monica Bellucci as Persephone; Harold Perrineau as Link; Harry Lennix as Commander Lock; Collin Chou as Seraph; Nathaniel Lees as Mifune, leader of the APU Corps; Clayton Watson as the Kid; Tanveer Atwal as Sati, a girl Neo encounters at the Mobil Avenue Train Station; Bernard White as Sati’s father, Rama; Bruce Spence as the Trainman, who controls all travel between the Matrix and the Machine world; Ian Bliss as Bane, the treacherous hovercraft crewmember inhabited by Agent Smith; David Roberts as Roland, captain of the Mjolnir; Anthony Wong as Ghost, Niobe’s first mate; and Anthony Zerbe as Councillor Hamman.

Reflecting back on the journey he began in the winter of 1997, when he started training for the role of Neo in The Matrix, Reeves appreciates the challenges posed by the Wachowskis and their ambitious story. “I love working with Larry and Andrew, I respect the opportunities they gave me and I respect the ideas and the imagination in this beautiful story,” Reeves says. “Everyone involved with these films was asked to do their very best, and it was challenging, but that’s what makes it really good – rolling up your sleeves and trying to realize this dream. How can you not be excited by the opportunity to hopefully do the best work that you might ever get the chance to do in your creative life?”

“For me, the experience of making these films has been transforming,” says Moss. “I’ve learned so much about myself, about life and work. It’s wonderful to be so committed to a project, and to be in a trilogy of films about conviction, having faith and fighting for what you believe in.”

Jada Pinkett Smith was similarly inspired by her Matrix experience. “It’s been fun because I got to play my alter ego to the hilt,” she says with a laugh, “and I’ve really learned a lot about myself through Niobe. Working on these films has really helped me strengthen my faith. I’ve done a lot of research and reading in my own internal journey of trying to deepen my roots as far as faith is concerned, and these movies were a big part of that process.”

When he considers his key role in the trilogy as Morpheus, the man whose unwavering faith provides the catalyst to Neo’s journey as the One, “I don’t think it’s an accident that I’m a part of this; I think it was perhaps a part of my destiny,” Fishburne says thoughtfully. “I love Morpheus. He’s probably the character I will be most remembered for. And everyone that I spent time with making these films will be part of who I am for the rest of my life.”

For Silver, who produced the blockbuster Die Hard and Lethal Weapon series, in addition to an impressive array of hit films, the Matrix trilogy “closes a chapter in filmmaking for me. It’s been an incredible adventure. The monumental undertaking of making these pictures was as full of drama, thrills and excitement as the movies themselves. Like everyone involved, I devoted a big part of my life to this incredible saga, and I’ll miss it.”

 

REVOLUTIONARY TRAINING, COMBAT & STUNTS

 

After taking the unprecedented approach of training for and performing their own sophisticated Kung Fu fighting and wire work stunts for The Matrix, the principal cast – Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving – reunited with the trilogy’s fight choreographer, master artist/wire work specialist Yuen Wo Ping, and his Hong Kong Kung Fu team led by Dion Lam, for five months of training and rehearsals prior to the production of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Daily training sessions were held in a Santa Monica airplane hangar that accommodated the film’s large motion capture stage in addition to a Matrix stunt team nearly triple its original size.

Having endured grueling training for four months for the first film, “the cast arrived in much better shape, much fitter, with a far greater understanding of the demands we would place on them,” Wo Ping says.

“Training for these two films was probably three times harder than preparing for the first,” admits Reeves, who devoted at least seven hours a day to Kung Fu. “Neo’s Kung Fu elements and wire work are much more sophisticated.”

While training for and filming The Matrix, Reeves was recovering from neck surgery, which restricted his movements, so Wo Ping accommodated his injury by choreographing routines that featured more hand-to-hand combat than kicking. This time around, Reeves had no such limitations. “The more I could do, the more they pushed me,” recalls the dedicated actor. “So when I could do one thing well, that was the day they’d ask me if I could do two things. Then when we were shooting, the Brothers would ask me if I could do seven things! It was all very good fun, but very hard work as well. And painful – ice is your friend.” (During training, Reeves was known to sit in a bathtub full of ice.)

“There is no one who is harder on themselves than Keanu,” Moss observes. “There were times when I would cover my ears and eyes, worried that he was pushing himself too far, but I completely commend and applaud him for going there. He really took his fighting and physicality to a level that I don’t think any American actor has ever done.”

“Keanu is exceptional,” compliments Wo Ping. “He is a super perfectionist, always dissatisfied with his own performance, even when I think it’s very good! I tried my best to match the level that he was looking for.”

Reeves feels that such ambitious training was the only way to reach the level of technical acuity necessary to achieve the Brothers’ vision for the film’s awe-inspiring action. “Wo Ping, Larry and Andy want the fights to be as spectacular as possible,” he says. “They love spectacle and they want to entertain. They’re interested in physical contact in both its positive and negative light, in the same way that fire can be destructive and it can also give warmth – that’s what they want from an action sequence.”

The exhilarating Revolutions fight sequences – the Club Hell Coat Check showdown, Neo’s brutal fight with Bane aboard the Logos, and his do-or-die battle with Agent Smith known as the Super Burly Brawl – result from a powerful synthesis between the choreographer, the filmmakers and the cast. “Wo Ping’s style meshes exceptionally well with the Brothers’ philosophy in terms of storytelling,” says producer Joel Silver. “Beyond the obvious antagonist and protagonist combating in a test of physical will, he illustrates the characters’ development through the fights. It was in the Dojo Fight in The Matrix that Neo first began to explore his potential, and in Reloaded’s Burly Brawl, he is so challenged by the onslaught of Smiths that he has to elevate himself to a whole new level. In Revolutions, Neo and Smith have increased their abilities to the point that they’re equal in power, and their power is immense.”

“The Brothers wanted the Super Brawl fight to convey Neo and Smith’s invincibility,” Wo Ping explains. “I tried to create an energy behind this sequence of these two very different fighters clashing in a battle where both must win but neither can be defeated. Thanks once again to Keanu and Hugo’s perseverance, we were able to achieve that energy in the fight.”

According to Silver, the cinematic payoff is extraordinary. “The Super Burly Brawl is like the ultimate comic book battle between two superheroes wreaking havoc on the world, which we’ve never witnessed in live action before,” he describes. “It’s a fantastic experience to watch how the Wachowskis have developed Neo and Smith’s rivalry to this final, incredible resolution in Revolutions.”

Filming the colossally ambitious Super Brawl took eight weeks and required months of preparation for the production team to develop innovative technical equipment to realize the Wachowskis’ vision for the bombastic sequence. The script called for the meticulously choreographed contest of will to take place in torrential rain, beginning on a flooded street lined with Agent Smiths, and then rocketing 2,500 feet into the lightning-streaked sky, hurtling in and out of an abandoned skyscraper, and crashing into a massive crater where Neo and Smith’s earth-shattering conflict is finally resolved. Devices were created to produce extra large raindrops that could be lit and seen better than typical “movie rain.” Though it was impractical to heat the vast amount of water used in the sequence, it was constantly recycled and purified through the rain rigs.

“Shooting the first section of the Super Brawl, where Neo and Smith confront each other in the street in the pouring rain, was fantastic,” enthuses Hugo Weaving, who says he “trained smarter” for Reloaded and Revolutions to avoid the injuries he suffered while making The Matrix. “I really love the sensation of being in the rain and I felt very invigorated and energized by it. Then when we got into the crater we were fighting in the mud as well, so it became more difficult.”

Filming the blend of confrontational action and dialogue in the Crater proved to be the most challenging section of the sequence for Weaving. “The rain was so heavy that it was hard to speak without starting to have bubbles and streams of water running out of your mouth. You couldn’t hear yourself speak, so finding the right tone in that scene was really difficult because I had no notion of what I sounded like.”

The three-deep rows of Agent Smith spectators were simulated via a combination of actor doubles, Smith “dummies” created by the Art Department and CGI Smiths added by the VFX team. Doubles outfitted in Smith masks stood in the back row and controlled the head movements of two rows of inter-connected dummies, so that every Smith follows the fight action in synchronicity.

To create a realistic sense of weightlessness for the airborne sequence of the Brawl, the Stunt and Martial Arts teams collaborated with Visual Effects and production departments to invent the “Tuning Forks,” a special rig that enabled the actors and stuntmen to simulate weightlessness while fighting. (Early testing proved it impractical to pursue the initial concept of shooting on a special NASA plane that simulates zero gravity for astronaut training.) This gravity-defying section of the battle was staged in “the Egg,” a large box-like set enclosed in blue screen where the fighting was shot and later married with a VFX background of the rain-drenched Matrix cityscape.

Numerous other rigs and harnesses were used to achieve all of Revolutions’ acrobatic stunts and wire work, including the versatile “Twisty Belt.” Developed by Martial Arts Coordinator and Reeves’ stunt double Chad Stahelski, the Twisty Belt is a harness that allows one to perform fluid multi-directional rotations, such as a back flip into a cartwheel. Another key piece of equipment was the infamous “Yak rig,” so named because of the performers’ tendency to vomit after working in this gyroscope-based device that simulates freefalling.

“Wire work looks easy, but it takes a lot of practice to get used to articulating your body and developing timing between you and the wire team that’s pulling,” notes Stahelski. “On top of all that, you need to be flexible, you need to be able to kick and punch and you still need the strength to pull your body up into the required positions.”

“It was grueling work, trying to execute the Kung Fu and wire moves in the rain, but Hugo and Chad and the stunt team were incredible,” Reeves says of the painstaking effort that went into perfecting the brutally balletic sequence. (In addition to his work in the Super Brawl, Reeves also performed portions of Neo’s fight with Bane aboard the Logos without the benefit of sight, since the prosthetic makeup used to depict Neo’s eye damage severely limited his vision.)

“Keanu beats himself up on set and he has very high expectations of what the standard of work should be, but he never pressures me or the other actors,” Weaving adds. “He’s a great listener – I really love working with him.”

Another gravity-defying Revolutions fight sequence designed by Wo Ping takes place in the Club Hell Coat Check, where Trinity, Morpheus and Seraph infiltrate an underground nightclub in the Matrix to confront the Merovingian, who has placed a bounty on each of their heads. A track system was installed on the ceiling of the set to anchor the actors and stunt performers upside down, and the Twisty Belt again provided the range of motion needed to pull off the characters’ acrobatic melee. Hundreds of squibs, explosives and breakaway set pieces had to be synchronized with the performers’ complex maneuvers.

“When I walked onto the Club Hell set, it reminded me of when Keanu and I shot the Lobby sequence in The Matrix,” recalls Carrie-Anne Moss, who broke her leg while training for Reloaded and Revolutions. “The pressure to get every move right and be in sync with all the squibs and the explosions was immense. I was nervous about getting back on the wire again after breaking my leg, but Chad and the wire team really helped me out. I wound up nailing a couple of big moves in one take, and got a ‘Hurrah!’ from the Brothers, which is really rare. Completing the Club Hell sequence was one of the highlights of this project for me.”

“Carrie-Anne’s attitude on these projects has been ‘Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it,’” Reeves says admiringly. “She embodies and lives that, beautifully and inspiringly so.”

“Carrie-Anne is very, very good and I always encouraged her to feel more confident about her ability,” says Wo Ping. “I also designed an extremely fast, powerful kick for her, which we call the Scorpion Kick. She uses the Scorpion Kick in the opening fight of Reloaded and again in the Club Hell fight in Revolutions. I trained her for over six months just for that one kick. She performed it very, very powerfully, with great precision.”

The Club Hell fight also features Trinity’s signature kick, the Double Eagle, a mighty blow delivered while she’s suspended in mid-air. “I had to kick this guy and he slams into a wall and gets stuck, and every time I did it I closed my eyes until they said he was okay, because I was so afraid he was going to get a concussion or hurt himself,” Moss says. “But he just kept doing it and loving it. Stuntmen and stuntwomen are very, very special people.”

“The Club Hell Coat Check fight takes the wire fu concept even further than the Lobby sequence in The Matrix,” Silver suggests. “It’s exciting to see how we were able to expand and elaborate on the artistry from the first film in this arc that culminates in Revolutions.”

A special hydraulic rig was used in the filming of the Siege on Zion, in which soldiers and volunteers are attacked and eviscerated by throngs of deadly Sentinels. This “airbike,” typically used to simulate a motorcycle moving in front of green screen, was adapted by the Matrix production to grab, shake and throw stunt performers as if being seized by Sentinel tentacles. (The rig was nicknamed the “PMS Machine” by the stunt crew, as in “Please Make it Stop.”)

Filming scenes depicting the valiant attack waged against the Machines by volunteers Zee and Charra was even more demanding than the actresses expected. “We were jumping and running through tunnels and landing on our knees and getting cut up,” says Nona Gaye, who plays Zee, a Zion citizen who chooses to fight the Machines for a chance to reunite with her husband Link, a key member of Morpheus’ crew. “It was really a little more strenuous than I thought it would be, but every bruise was worth it. The Siege is incredible.”

Jada Pinkett Smith exhibited her fighting skills in The Matrix Reloaded and displays her character Niobe’s best-known skill in Revolutions: piloting a rebel hovercraft through a mechanical sewer line while enduring heavy attack from pulverizing Sentinels. “The script made a reference to Niobe’s muscles bulging as she steered the ship, so I figured I’d better get some muscles,” says Pinkett Smith, who gave birth to daughter Willow shortly before her training commenced. “I know it may not seem like it, but filming that sequence was tough. The Brothers wanted me to make it look as realistic as possible that I was steering this big, old, heavy ship and snaking it through a sewer line. That was a lot of work because of the tension that you have to hold in your body in order to seem like you’re moving a ship of that size.”

From initial vision through preparation and execution, the level of innovation and talent put into the wire, fighting and stunt work on the Matrix films is unparalleled. “We’re all ruined,” concludes Supervising Stunt Coordinator R.A. Rondell. “We’ve hit such a tremendous benchmark with these films that working on anything else is going to be a bit of a letdown. The ability and expertise of this crew makes what we were able to achieve pretty unlimited. We’ve done as many as 70 takes in one day to make it perfect, to find a magic moment. We’ve become such hyper-perfectionists that it will be a letdown when we’re not allowed to go that extra distance.”

 

BEYOND BULLET TIME & THE BURLY BRAWL:

CREATING REVOLUTIONARY VIRTUAL CINEMA

 

The visual effects process for The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions began in March 2000 at the production’s in-house visual effects division, ESC (pronounced “Escape”), where John Gaeta, visual effects supervisor of the Matrix trilogy, has supervised the creation of over 1,300 virtual effects shots for Reloaded and approximately 800 more for Revolutions – dwarfing in size and scope the 412 VFX shots created for The Matrix.

Gaeta’s primary innovation for The Matrix has come to be known as “Bullet Time,” a revolutionary technique for depicting cinematic action in the style of Japanese animation known as animι. Bullet Time refers to a conceptual state of being inside the virtual reality of the Matrix, in which a character – primarily Neo – obtains a “mind-over-Matrix” capability. The creative process for bringing Bullet Time to the screen is called “virtual cinematography,” a digital solution developed by Gaeta and the Matrix filmmakers to depict these “mind-over-Matrix” moments in slow-motion, as seen by a camera moving at regular speed. The result allowed Gaeta’s team to manipulate imagery at any given speed without losing clarity.

But this initial version of virtual cinematography was deemed inadequate – “almost arcane,” as Gaeta sees it – for rendering the super-human events the Wachowski Brothers envisioned for Reloaded and the epic action they designed for Revolutions. Not only did Gaeta have to find a way to ignite Reloaded’s scorching fourteen minute freeway chase, render Neo’s “Burly Brawl” battle against 100 Agent Smiths and depict Neo flying at 2000 miles per hour over the sprawling Matrix megacity, but the Wachowskis’ ambitious Revolutions script called for a spectacular cascade of marauding creatures, mammoth robots controlled by men and virtual destruction that powers “the Siege,” the apocalyptic battle in which the rebels mount an aggressive defense of Zion against the Machines’ relentless army of Sentinels and Diggers. Gaeta also needed to bring to life the sinister Machine City, its “bio-mechanical” inhabitants and the ultimate confrontation between Neo and Agent Smith known as the “Super Burly Brawl.”

“It was evident that we couldn’t go any further by utilizing the technology from the first Bullet Time shots,” says Gaeta, who won an Academy Award for Visual Effects for The Matrix. “It was too restrictive and too labor intensive. The concept of Bullet Time needed to graduate to the true technology it suggested.”

In other words, realizing Reloaded and Revolutions’ visionary action sequences required technology that didn’t exist yet. Familiar territory for Gaeta and the Wachowskis, but this time around, the filmmakers took their ambitious plan to advance virtual cinematography exponentially further than one can imagine. “They decided to create images that no one could copy,” says producer Joel Silver. “That takes a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of talent. And the results are staggering. These guys didn’t just raise the bar for action filmmaking, for visionary storytelling, for what is visually possible – they obliterated it.”

The centerpiece of Gaeta and Company’s answer to the first phase of virtual cinematography is their creation of virtual, three-dimensional depictions of the main characters for the purpose of enacting their impossible super-human feats at a level of realism never seen before. To create virtual humans, the VFX team utilized motion capture (“mocap”), a technique involving sophisticated cameras that recorded precise motion data from reflective bodysuits worn by the main actors, Yuen Wo Ping’s martial arts team and the stunt performers as they executed the required action.

In addition to months’ worth of motion capture data acquired for Reloaded, extensive mocap was utilized in rendering Revolutions’ climactic Super Burly Brawl combat between Neo and Agent Smith. A special capture stage – which, at the time of production, was the largest motion capture performance stage ever created – was operated for more than four months parallel to principal photography. The data recorded for Reloaded and Revolutions, as well as for the video game Enter the Matrix, is the most motion capture ever created for a film; the amount of capture needed to produce the most versatile of video games pales in comparison.

“Working with motion capture was something very new to me,” says master martial arts choreographer Wo Ping. “It’s fantastic technology because it helps me to accomplish a lot of moves that can’t be done in real life. With motion capture, we can enforce the dynamic power and emphasize the beauty of the kicks and moves in a way that we couldn’t otherwise do.”

In editing the motion capture data, Gaeta’s team literally fleshed out the virtual characters’ computer-generated bodies, adding photo-realistic muscles and wardrobe. Layering lifelike expressions onto the computer-generated cast involved another extreme innovation that the Matrix virtual artists have dubbed Universal Capture (“u-cap”). Five ultra-powerful high-resolution cameras were arranged in a semi-circle around each actor’s face. As the actor conveyed a range of emotions and expressions, the Sony HDW 900 cameras recorded the performance to the most minute detail – all the way down to down to the pores and hair follicles.

Using these five real-time recordings to extrapolate the shapes of the characters’ faces to an extremely high resolution, the VFX team then applied the dimensional facial textures to the digital characters’ bodies, resulting in the most realistic computer-generated human images rendered to date.

Once the master content of each sequence was captured and fused with intricate layers of visual elements (including virtual backgrounds, objects and computer-generated enhancements like glistening glass, bullet wakes and blood), virtual cinematography opened up infinite camera composition and editorial possibilities, resulting in what the Matrix VFX team has dubbed “virtual cinema.”

In the virtual cinema that fortifies the Super Burly Brawl, an unfettered camera follows Neo and Agent Smith as their furious battle escalates from an earth-shattering exchange of blows to a soaring sky-high smackdown. Virtual cinema also makes it possible to depict in unprecedented detail the surreal final impact of Neo’s fist colliding with Agent Smith’s face, creating an impossible event captured at impossible camera angles as the action shifts between super slow motion and supersonic speed. This moment aspires to be the most photo-real, dynamically moving computer generated close-up of a human face ever created to date. (To commemorate this achievement, the Wachowski Brothers and Joel Silver had three-dimensional sculptures of the dramatic final result crafted into bronze medallions, which will be given to guests at each of the three Revolutions premieres in Los Angeles, Sydney and Tokyo.)

The groundwork for this kind of hyper-reality was laid in the rippling of a hi-rise building’s surface at the crescendo of the helicopter crash sequence in The Matrix. The filmmakers discarded the rules of standard physics, because in an algorithmic world like the Matrix, visual glitches like the surreal structural swell seemed natural. Reloaded and Revolutions exceed all expectations in furthering this fantastic new form of action.

In addition to the groundbreaking visual effects that intensify the Super Burly Brawl, Gaeta’s team was responsible for developing state-of-the-art creature animation to realize the Wachowskis’ vision for the Siege. Revolutions breaks all animation-based boundaries in rendering the devastating destruction waged by Zion’s corps of rebel-manned Armored Personal Units (APUs) against the Machines’ furious onslaught of Sentinels and Diggers. Through next generation “behavioral animation” and other A.I based methodologies, the VFX team also created the swarming bio-mechanical population of the Machine City. The insect-based creatures being driven by these technologies, as well as the large-scale environments of the Machine City and Zion, are all based on the singular designs of Geof Darrow, creator of ultra-detailed comic book classics like Hard Boiled.

In the tradition of contemporary Japanese animated movies, Revolutions also presents photo-real 3D interpretations of natural phenomenon like weather, water and flame to impressionistically convey intelligence, behavior and character. Scores of Revolutions elements from lightning to explosions were given a complete rethink on design, style and execution. “The brothers obsess on hyper-graphic depictions of supernatural events,” Gaeta reveals. “At every turn we’ve been striving to balance chaos and order, like putting a picture frame around a flash flood.”

Commonly-reviewed material at visual effects headquarters during the photography stages included Darrow’s conceptual drawings and films such as Alien; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Vertigo; Apocalypse Now; Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi (highly-stylized documentaries about life on earth); IMAX’s Blue Earth; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; documentaries on ultimate fighting, the Hindenberg disaster, submarines from the 1800s, undersea life, Rocky Marciano and other heavyweight champions; reality TV shows about car chases and crashes; high-speed car crash research and development films; information about robotics manufacturing, glass blowing, the making of the Chunnel (the tunnel that connects France and England), artificial intelligence and a reel of footage specializing in animι explosions of all sorts and sizes.

“Our work on Reloaded was concentrated on creating hyper-real virtual cinema in pursuit of super-human events like the Burly Brawl, the Freeway Chase and Neo flying,” Gaeta explains. “For Revolutions, we focused our efforts on rendering epic, Revelations-like confrontations between man and machine, as well as large-scale environments within the real world, like the Machine City and Zion. I hope that our work on both films compliments the most significant contributions to dark science fiction cinema since Blade Runner, Alien and a host of milestone high concept effects pictures.”

The sheer volume of virtual effects – and the time needed to render them – necessitated that Gaeta delegate a portion of the workload to additional VFX vendors, who created specific shots under his supervision. Those vendors include: BUF, creators of the Code sequences and other special perception effects; Tippett Studios, creators of some fully-digital environments and complex creature scenes; Sony Imageworks, creators of the Tunnel environments and large-scale events depicted within; and Giant Killer Robots, creators of the Underground environments.

To manage the intricate processes of creating virtual cinema from pre-visualization through post-production, Gaeta’s team collaborated to design the “Zion Mainframe,” the most functional information and asset exchange engine ever created for a feature film. More then just a search engine, this new tool interlocks all departments involved in digitizing artwork, design concepts, storyboards, CAD stage plans, 3D models for concept and stage planning, high-resolution models, Quicktime movies of all shots in progress (which can be retrieved through a digital dailies and shot history system) as well as full resolution back-ups of final shots created by visual effects vendors.

To date, over 1000 special photographic, physical and pyrotechnic effects and digital artists have worked on the virtual effects elements of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

 

DESIGNING THE REVOLUTION

 

Envisioned by the Wachowski Brothers as one epic film that would be presented to audiences as two chapters of the three-piece story arc that began with The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions were shot over a grueling 270-day production schedule. Principle photography began in Oakland, California in March 2001 and wrapped that location in June. After a brief summer hiatus, production re-commenced in September in Sydney, Australia, where the entire Matrix production was filmed in 1998. Reloaded and Revolutions were shot primarily at the Fox Studios in Sydney until production wrapped in August of 2002.

In Australia alone, the two films created over 3,500 jobs, employing 80 full-time actors and hundreds of extras. “It was a massive operation,” says producer Joel Silver. “We had close to one thousand people on the payroll full-time. We were very lucky that we had great continuity of incredible personnel from the first film. ”

One of the first artists employed to work on the Matrix trilogy was Geof Darrow, whose illustrations for comic books like the gleefully maniacal Hard Boiled were a source of great inspiration for the Brothers as they conceptualized their post-apocalyptic universe. For The Matrix, Darrow created painstakingly-drawn, almost torturously intricate designs for the films’ mechanized beings and sets. He reprised his role on The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, rendering conceptual drawings of Zion, the ominously sprawling Machine City and its insect-inspired machine creatures, the sinister-tentacled Sentinels, and the Zion military’s fleet of hovercraft and APUs (Armored Personal Units).

To bring the Reloaded and Revolutions design concepts to life, the Art Department employed over 400 people at any given moment under the aegis of production designer Owen Paterson. In contrast to the 30 sets he and his team designed for The Matrix, Paterson was responsible for creating a total of almost 150 sets for the two films, constructing approximately 70 sets for each. “That really is a huge amount of sets to build, particularly given the limited number of stages we had,” Paterson discloses. “Some of the sets weren’t used for more than a couple of days. It was an enormous logistical effort for Lead Art Director Hugh Bateup and a team of art directors and construction people who made this possible – a real exercise in getting one set finished, shot, broken down and out of the stage to make way for the next.”

The most challenging environment for Paterson’s team to create was the vertical underground city of Zion. “Zion is the absolute opposite of the Matrix,” Paterson explains. “This is no high tech space; it’s located near the center of the Earth. It’s rather reminiscent of the early 20th century industrial design, very decrepit but still practical.”

Zion consists of various levels, the uppermost being the dock, a landing base for the hovercraft fleet. The Zion military, aided by courageous volunteers like Zee, Charra and the Kid, desperately battles to hold the dock from the Sentinel invasion. “The dock area looks like a large domed cistern fitted with aircraft carrier-sized landing platforms, walkways, ammo bunkers and elevators,” Paterson describes. “It’s very old and suffering from lack of materials repair, so we had to give it that rusty, aged look.”

As part of the design process, Paterson’s team built 3D computer models of the Zion dock and every environment depicted within the city, as well as the cockpits and decks of the hovercraft fleet. These models could be viewed from any angle and were utilized by the Visual Effects department to bring Zion and the cataclysmic destruction of the Siege to life.

Numerous departments spent almost a year collaborating to realize the Wachowskis’ vision for the corps of APUs – Armored Personal Units, giant mechanized fighting machines used by the Zion military to defend against the marauding Machine Army. From a drawing by Darrow and computer-designed construction blueprints, the Prop Department eventually built a non-functioning APU in its actual dimensions: a 14-feet high, two-and-a-half ton steel skeleton with a limited range of motion and arms that could be posed for development and animation by the VFX group. The APU’s removable torso was later used for close-ups during production.

For the filming of scenes in which actors maneuver the APUs in non-VFX shots, the design team constructed a carriage that was attached to a motion base to simulate the dramatic movements of the heavy-duty machinery. The live-action shots of the actors were later married to VFX shots of the APUs in motion. “There were probably over 1,000 pieces that went into the creation of the APU and its various elements,” Paterson muses. “It took a tremendous amount of collaboration among a very large crew to engineer and create this sophisticated machinery.” (Visual Effects Supervisor John Gaeta and conceptual artist Geof Darrow make cameo appearances as APU operators in the gut-wrenching Siege sequence.)

Though the Siege is largely rendered by a spectacular array of visual effects, the Art Department supplied a number of physical sets for the explosive sequence. For the filming of Zee and Charra’s assaults on the Diggers while battling crushing debris and the lethal tentacles of swarming Sentinels, the team built interior defense ducts – concrete and steel tubing equipped with ladders and hatches – and the upper level service channel, where the women stage a precarious last-ditch attack.

The art department also crafted several Darrow-designed Sentinels, but “only the dead ones,” as Paterson put it. (His team created seven “hero” Sentinels and 30 wrecked versions.) The Prop Department built the first Sentinel from VFX computer files; this physical model was then cast, duplicated and painted. All the finish textures for the computer-generated flying Sentinels were based on the physical model. “I had the dead Sentinels made primarily because I wanted to use these fantastic shapes to dress the walkways, elevators and bunkers,” Paterson reveals. “I wanted to add texture to the rubble and the bullets and the chunks of fallen APUs, and give our actors something to approximate the slew of slithering tentacles that the VFX team would add in post-production. Like our work on the APU, there was a great deal of collaboration between departments in the creation of the Sentinels. Everyone did a great job.”

Paterson’s department often had to build two or three versions of the same set to depict it in various stages of destruction. Sets like the Club Hell Coat Check and the Dark Tower – the isolated skyscraper that Neo and Smith careen through during their Super Burly Brawl battle – needed to be capable of withstanding a good deal of action. “There was a vast amount of interactivity between the sets and the effects,” says the designer. “We had lots of breakaway and collapsing set pieces; lots of shapes crashing through sets; people being blown into walls; a lot of bullet effects – we needed things to explode very safely around people, and the sets had to accommodate that.”

Paterson and company also created a small army of Agent Smith “dummies” that were posed as spectators in the Super Burly Brawl, lessening the number of CGI Smiths that the VFX team would have to add in post. “Hugh Bateup and Peter Wyborn put so much effort into getting the molds just right, doing meticulous skin tone tests and work on the faces, and having quality wigs constructed. Their Smith dummies really looked like Hugo,” praises Paterson.

The Matrix Art Department brought a sense of old, decaying architecture to the real-world sewer sets, enormous tunnels made of pipes used by the rebel fleet to navigate between Zion and Matrix broadcast depth. “It’s a threatened place with very intricate dressing that creates the feeling of a thousand years of rack and ruin,” Paterson notes. “But it somehow celebrates the human will to live life to the fullest and celebrate hope.”

Whenever possible, Patseron’s crew recycled materials or designed sets from elements that could be used to create multiple environments. After wrapping the Freeway set from The Matrix Reloaded, the production donated over a mile’s worth of pristine lumber and plywood to Mexico, where it was used in the construction of 100 low-income family homes. The Revolutions sets were recycled in a different way, as Paterson explains: “Everything about this film is curves. It’s steel. It’s more curves. It’s complicated shapes. There’s not been a lot of sets that have been regular, straightforward flattage where you can reuse it and recycle.” The designer cleverly re-purposed elements of one set for another, helping to control cost and conserve materials. The sets of the hovercrafts Nebuchadnezzar, Mjolnir and the Vigilant utilize the same floor base and chair mechanisms but are outfitted with different cores and wall groups. The Club Hell and the Sub Metro sets also shared essential elements.

Paterson also worked closely with costume designer Kym Barrett to ensure that their color palettes – green hues for the Matrix and blue tones for the real world – worked in sync. “The sets underscore the costumes, the color of which complement the sets,” he says.

“The entire production design flows from the minds of Larry and Andy,” Paterson notes. “To take something from being a written word, to a drawing on a piece of paper, to something that’s built physically or virtually in a computer is a wonderful thing. I am proud that my very talented team and I could work with Larry and Andy and be part of the process.”

 

OUTFITTING THE REAL WORLD & THE MATRIX

 

Costume designer Kym Barrett designed literally thousands of costumes for The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, evolving the trilogy’s wardrobe to suit the characters’ growth while maintaining continuity between the three films. “Neo and Trinity each take a long journey in the first movie, and become different people,” observes Barrett, who gave birth twice during the course of production of the trilogy. “Neo is no longer concerned with whether or not he’s the One, and Trinity is certain of her love for Neo and her belief in him. We tried to reflect their new confidence in what they wear.”

Barrett’s wardrobe for Morpheus needed to reflect his growing leadership role in the rebellion against the Machines. “Everyone looks grungier in the real world than they do in the Matrix, but Morpheus always maintains poise,” Barrett notes. “He draws strength from his conviction that Neo is the One and will end the war, and that confidence radiates in the way he wears his clothes, whether he’s on the hovercraft, in Zion or in the Matrix.”

“Kym is a creative genius,” Laurence Fishburne attests. “It’s the little things she does. For instance, the shoes she chose for Morpheus – they’re such cool shoes. I loved those shoes! They made the character.”

All the shoes worn by the principle actors, including Morpheus’ purple faux alligator boots, were designed by Barrett and handmade by Andre No. 1. Multiple pairs were crafted for each character to outfit the actor plus his or her stunt performers.

As she did for The Matrix, Barrett had to create multiple versions of each character’s wardrobe to accommodate the demands of various scenes: duplicate clothing made with stretchier material allowed for better movement in the fighting and action sequences, and other sets of wardrobe were specifically designed to accommodate wire harnesses. Costumes for Hugo Weaving and his Agent Smith stunt doubles numbered in the hundreds.

During the climactic, rain-drenched Super Burly Brawl showdown between Smith and Neo, Weaving, Reeves and numerous Smith doubles spent nearly two months shooting in a torrential downpour. “Our department worked out an elaborate system for keeping everyone warm, dry and safe in their costumes,” recalls Barrett. “We anticipated a certain rate of attrition with the actors due to them having to stand there under those conditions for twelve hours a day for two months, so the team worked very hard to make sure everyone’s wet suits were as comfortable as possible. We had a split crew, so we had people working almost twenty-four hours around the clock to make sure everything was dried and ready for the morning.”

Under the direction of head hairstylist Judy Cory, the Matrix Hair Department created 182 “Hugo wigs” to cover all the Smith doubles and account for multiple changes due to the rain. As Weaving recalls, “All my doubles were standing there with their hair staying up beautifully in the rain, but even with massive amounts of hairspray, my hair started to just fall down in my face. So I had to put on a wig of my own hair!”

His multiple-Smith experience led to some light-hearted self-reflection on Weaving’s part. “Well, I realize now how far my hairline’s receded,” he says. “Normally I look at myself in the mirror and I think it’s alright. But when I was looking at everyone from the side, aaagh!”

Even the rain couldn’t compare with the single biggest challenge Barrett and the Matrix wardrobe department faced: costuming all the citizens of Zion for the elaborate Siege sequence. “It was a mammoth undertaking,” Barrett admits. “We had hundreds of actors, stuntmen and extras to dress and all their clothes had to be very rusty, very simple but refined, in keeping with Zion.”

To make the task even more challenging, the costumers couldn’t use any store-bought clothing or synthetic material. “Zion is the center of the Earth and life is sustained in part by all this steam-driven machinery, so it’s very hot,” Barrett explains. “We imagined that they grow things by hydroponics because that process relies on water and heat. So we had to create clothing that could’ve been made from hemp, made from natural fibers, vegetable fibers. We researched ancient China and Mongolia and looked at a lot of the mummies that were buried in really beautifully woven natural fibers, before the advent of silks. We found shapes and textures that we thought were delicate and beautiful, but raw.”

For the overall look of Zion’s citizenry, Barrett chose a palette of light colors to contrast with the dark world in which they live. She explains: “Zion is a city under siege, so the clothes made by and for the people who live there emphasize function over fashion. At the same time, they take pride in their history and their craftsmanship, and their wardrobe reflects the true utilitarian spirit of the community.”

Barrett also had to impart a sense of Zion’s structured military presence that is in keeping with the dire circumstances the forces are facing. As she sees it, “They’re under serious time constraints and under a tremendous amount of pressure, so you can feel a kind of mercenary element developing in the army. In the wardrobe, there’s evidence of a structured ranking system – the captains are all in burgundies and reds, and the lieutenants are in dark blues – but it’s kind of fallen by the wayside, because there are bigger issues to deal with. For instance, we didn’t really differentiate between the different ships’ crews. They all belong to the same army, and they’ve lost people and have had to borrow crewmembers from other ships. They’re all basically under the same commander, following the same path.”

For Jada Pinkett Smith’s character Niobe, the only female hovercraft captain in the Zion fleet, Barrett designed a distinctive wardrobe that reflects the contradictions in her nature. “We wanted Niobe’s wardrobe to exude her femininity as well as her strength,” Barrett says. “I tried to make it character driven: just how do you make Jada Pinkett Smith, who is like a wisp, a beautiful little elf, into this muscley woman who’s controlling a ship? Part of it is her training, part of it is her acting, and part of it is how much I show of her arms. To underscore her connection to Morpheus, we outfitted Jada in faux alligator skin, and I selected a burgundy color because it looked so beautiful with her skin tone.”

Barrett went in a completely different direction in designing for the more malevolent inhabitants of the Matrix. Inspired by her research into iconic images of evil and fairytale characters, she tried to capture a “hard core fantasy feeling” in wardrobe for characters like the sharply affluent Merovingian and his mesmerizing wife Persephone. “I see the Merovingian and Persephone as the king and queen of hell,” enthuses Barrett. “Snow White inspired their evil-in-rubber look.”

“Kym did an amazing job with my costume – it just is Persephone,” says Monica Bellucci, who plays the woman described in the screenplay as “sex and death squeezed into a woman’s business suit made of latex.” “Whenever I put it on, I immediately became her.”

In Revolutions, Persephone and the Merovingian hold court at a sinister underground Matrix nightclub known as Club Hell. The extras populating the club played a large part in establishing its dark, decadent ambience. “We wanted to evoke a high-end fetish feeling, but we also wanted the idea of a Bosch painting of hel

[epote]

THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE

 

Not only are Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures making cinematic history with their simultaneous global release of The Matrix Revolutions, but the final explosive chapter in the phenomenal Matrix trilogy will break further ground when it becomes the first digitally re-mastered major live action event film to be released concurrently in 35mm and IMAX’s revolutionary 15/70 format. Digitally re-mastered for the world’s largest screens, The Matrix Revolutions: The IMAX Experience will debut at IMAX® Theatres worldwide on November 5, 2003, concurrently with the 35mm theatrical release of The Matrix Revolutions.

Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures previously collaborated with IMAX on the hugely successful release of The Matrix Reloaded: The IMAX Experience, which debuted on 39 IMAX screens on June 6, 2003, launching three weeks after the 35mm theatrical release of The Matrix Reloaded on May 15. The Matrix Reloaded: The IMAX Experience later expanded to 54 IMAX screens throughout North America and 14 screens internationally, grossing more than $13 million worldwide to date.

Like The Matrix Reloaded: The IMAX Experience, The Matrix Revolutions: The IMAX Experience has been digitally transformed into the unparalleled image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience® through revolutionary and proprietary IMAX® DMR™ (Digital Re-mastering) technology. IMAX Theatres offer unequalled clarity and intensity of image as audiences experience the action, adventure, drama and emotion of The Matrix Revolutions on screens up to eight stories tall and 120 feet wide, and surrounded by 12,000 watts of pure digital sound. (IMAX screens are three times larger than the average 35mm screen, 4500 times larger than the average TV screen, and are as wide as an NFL football field.)

“We’re excited to give fans the opportunity to experience the world of the Matrix in this spectacular format,” says producer Joel Silver, who, along with the Wachowski Brothers, had orginally intended to convert only Revolutions to IMAX DMR, but after seeing the amazing conversion test on footage from The Matrix, decided to release a digitally re-mastered Reloaded in IMAX theatres as well. “Throughout the IMAX DMR converstion process, the IMAX team took meticulous care of maintaining the technical integrity of the films. The IMAX Experiece of both Reloaded and Revolutions adds a new dimension to the films’ groundbreaking action and advances the Wachowski Brothers’ vision for telling the trilogy’s story in multiple formats.”

The sheer size of a 15/70 film frame, combined with the unique IMAX projection technology, is the key to the extraordinary sharpness and clarity of a 15/70 film. The 15/70 image is ten times larger than a conventional 35mm frame and three times bigger than a standard 70mm frame. IMAX projectors are the most advanced, highest-precision and most powerful projectors ever built The key to their superior performance and reliability is the unique “Rolling Loop” film movement. The Rolling Loop advances the film horizontally in a smooth, wave-like motion. During projection, each frame is positioned on fixed registration pins, and the film is held firmly against the rear element of the lens by a vacuum. As a result, the picture and focus steadiness are far above normal projection standards and provide outstanding image clarity.

To fully envelop IMAX Theatre-goers, the presentation is enhanced by a six-channel stereo surround system comprised of 44 custom designed speakers that extract 12,000 watts of pure digital srround sound. The IMAX Proportional Point Source loudspeaker system was specifically designed for IMAX Theatres and allows the audience superb sound quality regardless of where they may be seated.

Today, there are more than 200 films in the medium’s film library, many of them bridging the gap between education and entertainment experience, providing entertainment to markets worldwide.

 

WHAT IS IMAX® DMR™ TECHNOLOGY?

 

IMAX has redefined the movie-going experience through IMAX DMR, a patent pending revolutionary technology that allows live-action films to be transformed into the unparalleled image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience.

IMAX DMR (Digital Re-Mastering) starts by converting a 35mm frame into digital form at very high resolution, capturing all the detail from the original. The proprietary software mathematically analyzes and extracts the important image elements in each frame from the original structure to create a pristine form of the original photography. This is the most complex step in IMAX DMR. The image on a 35mm film frame is comprised of a fine grain structure like that of all photographic images. This grain, when projected onto the IMAX screen, looks like a TV channel that isn’t quite tuned to the station. Removing the grain while preserving the quality of the underlying image is the basis of IMAX DMR.

To create the brightness and clarity that audiences have come to expect from The IMAX Experience, IMAX uses a proprietary computer program to make the images sharper than they were originally, while colors are adjusted for the unique technically superior characteristics of the IMAX screen. The completed re-mastered film is then transferred onto the world’s largest film format, 15-perforations 70mm. Sonically, IMAX has always delivered incredible six-channel multi-speaker sound that helps put audiences in the picture. IMAX recreates this immersive experience for IMAX DMR by recreating the film’s original soundtrack.

 

ABOUT IMAX CORPORATION

 

Founded in 1967, IMAX Corporation is one of the world's leading entertainment technology companies. IMAX’s businesses include the creation and delivery of the world’s best cinematic presentations using proprietary IMAX and IMAX 3D technology, and the development of the highest quality digital production and presentation. IMAX has developed revolutionary technology called IMAX DMR (Digital Re-mastering) that makes it possible for virtually any 35mm film to be transformed into the unparalleled image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience. The IMAX brand is recognized throughout the world for extraordinary and immersive family entertainment experiences. As of June 2003, there were more than 235 IMAX theatres operating in 34 countries.

 

IMAX®, IMAX® 3D, IMAX®DMR™ and The IMAX Experience® are trademarks of IMAX Corporation. More information on the Company can be found at http://www.imax.com.

 

 

 

 

ABOUT THE CAST

 

KEANU REEVES (Neo) is one of Hollywood’s most sought after and busiest leading men. He will next be seen in the romantic comedy Something’s Gotta Give starring opposite Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, and is currently in production on the Warner Bros. epic Constantine.

His long list of credits include the Matrix trilogy; his critically acclaimed performance in The Gift, opposite Cate Blanchett; Hardball; Sweet November; The Replacements; A Walk in the Clouds; the hit thriller The Devil’s Advocate, opposite Al Pacino and Charlize Theron; Little Buddha; and Much Ado About Nothing, in which Reeves starred with Denzel Washington, Emma Thompson and Michael Keaton. Reeves was also seen in Bram Stoker’s Dracula; My Own Private Idaho; the action-adventure film Point Break; the very popular Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and its sequel Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.

Raised in Toronto, Reeves performed in various local theatre productions and on television before relocating to Los Angeles. His first widely acclaimed role was in Tim Hunter’s River’s Edge. He then starred in Marisa Silver’s Permanent Record and with Amy Madigan and Fred Ward in The Prince of Pennsylvania. Yet another turn came when the actor was cast as the innocent Danceny in Stephen Frears’ highly praised Dangerous Liaisons alongside Glenn Close, John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer. He joined other outstanding casts that year in Ron Howard’s comedy Parenthood and in Lawrence Kasdan’s I Love You to Death.

Audiences saw Reeves for the first time as the lead opposite Barbara Hershey in Jon Amiel’s Tune in Tomorrow, also starring Peter Falk. His additional credits include Tri-Star’s sci-fi thriller, Johnny Mnemonic, Andrew Davis’ action film Chain Reaction and the dark comedy Feeling Minnesota, directed by Steve Baigelman for New Line Cinema.

 

LAURENCE FISHBURNE (Morpheus), honored for his work on the stage and screen, earned an Academy Award nomination for his searing portrayal of Ike Turner in the hit biopic What’s Love Got to Do With It. Fishburne recently made his directorial debut, as well as starring in and producing, Once in the Life, which he wrote based on the one-act play Riff Raff in which he starred, wrote and directed in 1994. The play’s initial run in Los Angeles was the first production produced under Fishburne’s own banner, L.O.A. Productions.

Fishburne, who began acting at the age of 10, was only 15 years old when he won the role of a young G.I. in Francis Coppola’s Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now. He went on to work with Coppola on Rumble Fish, Gardens of Stone and The Cotton Club.

Fishburne has collaborated twice with noted director John Singleton, on Boyz ‘N the Hood and Higher Learning, earning an NAACP Image Award for Best Actor for the former. His other credits include Othello, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Just Cause, Bad Company, Class Action, Deep Cover, Fled, Cadence, King of New York, Red Heat, Band of the Hand, Spike Lee’s School Daze, Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple, Hoodlum, Event Horizon, The Matrix, as the voice for Thrax in Osmosis Jones and most recently as the star of Biker Boyz.

On the small screen, Fishburne received nominations for the Emmy, Golden Globe and CableACE Awards and won an NAACP Image Award for his performance in the HBO movie The Tuskegee Airmen, the story of America’s first black combat pilots. He also won an Emmy Award for his role in the premiere episode of Robert De Niro’s series Tribeca. In 1997 Fishburne received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Mini-Series or Special for his starring role in the HBO drama Miss Evers’ Boys, which he also executive produced. Miss Evers’ Boys was awarded five Emmys, including the coveted President’s Award, which honors a program that illuminates a social or educational issue. Fishburne recently starred in and executive produced Always Outnumbered, directed by Michael Apted for HBO.

Fishburne’s other television credits include the critically acclaimed telefilms A Rumor of War, For Us the Living and Decoration Day.

In 1992 Fishburne received the Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award and a Theatre World Award for his work in the Broadway production of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running, in which he reprised the role of Sterling Johnson that he originated at the Yale Repertory Theatre. In 1999 Fishburne played the lead role of Henry II of France in the story of the struggle with his estranged wife, Eleanor of Acquitaine.

Fishburne can currently be seen in Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River, starring alongside the acclaimed cast of Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Laura Linney and Marcia Gay Harden.

 

CARRIE-ANNE MOSS (Trinity) landed her big break as an actress when she appeared opposite Keanu Reeves in the Wachowski Brothers’ smash hit The Matrix. Following the film’s release, Moss starred with Val Kilmer in Red Planet. She also co-starred opposite Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp and Dame Judi Dench in Lasse Hallstrom’s Oscar-nominated film Chocolat and starred with Guy Pearce in the critically acclaimed independent thriller Memento, for which she received an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress. More recently, Moss starred in The Matrix Reloaded, the second installment in The Matrix trilogy.

Moss was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and began performing in a children’s musical theatre group when she was eleven. A trip to Europe with the school choir in her senior year affirmed her passion for performing and she enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena upon her return. After graduating, Moss moved to Europe and became a successful model, traveling the globe and appearing on many international magazine covers. While working in Spain, she landed a regular role in the television series Dark Justice. Moss moved to Los Angeles the following year when the series switched locations and soon after was cast in a starring role in Aaron Spelling’s television show Models Inc.

Moss will next be seen in the thriller Suspect Zero opposite Aaron Eckhart and Sir Ben Kingsley.

 

HUGO WEAVING (Agent Smith) is one of Australia’s most acclaimed actors. He graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1981 and has since worked extensively in film, television and theatre. He was recently seen in the first two installments of Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy The Lord of the Rings as Elrond, Lord of Rivendell.

In 1988 Weaving won an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor for his work in The Interview, directed by Craig Monahan. In 1991 he won an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor for his work in Proof, directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse. He also received and AFI Award nomination in 1994 for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, directed by Stephen Elliot.

Weaving’s other film credits include The Old Man Who Read Love Stories, Strange Planet, The Matrix, Bedrooms and Hallways, the critically acclaimed True Love and Chaos, Stephen Elliot’s Frauds, The Custodian, Paul Cox’s Exile, Reckless Kelly, Wendy Cracked a Walnut, The Right Hand Man, For Love Alone and The City’s Edge.

His television credits include the acclaimed Australian miniseries Bodyline, the Australian series Halifax f.p., the telefilm The Bite, the miniseries Bangkok Hilton (also starring Nicole Kidman), The Dirtywater Dynasty, Naked - Coral Island, Barlow and Chambers: A Long Way From Home and Melba.

His numerous theatre credits include the Sydney Theatre Company’s Macbeth, The Perfectionist, The Cherry Orchard and Arcadia. He has also starred in Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew for the Melbourne Theatre Company, and in Julius Caesar, Ring Around the Moon and Private Lives for the State Theatre Company of South Australia.

 

JADA PINKETT SMITH (Niobe) has proven herself to be one of today’s most versatile and gifted young actresses. She landed one of Hollywood’s most sought after roles, as Niobe in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

Pinkett Smith was last seen in a pivotal role opposite her husband Will Smith in Ali for Columbia Pictures. Other film credits include Fox Searchlight’s Kingdom Come opposite LL Cool J and Whoopi Goldberg, and a starring role in Spike Lee’s critically acclaimed Bamboozled, for which she received an Image award nomination. Pinkett Smith also starred in the title role for New Line Cinema’s Woo and was featured in Miramax’s Scream 2, with Neve Campbell. She had a cameo role as the young journalist in the critically acclaimed film A Return to Paradise starring Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, and Joaquin Phoenix for Polygram.

Pinkett Smith has amassed an impressive list of motion picture credits including the international box-office hit The Nutty Professor, in which she starred opposite Eddie Murphy and New Line Pictures’ popular urban-action drama Set It Off, helmed by F. Gary Gray and co-starring Queen Latifah and Vivica Fox.

After making her film debut in 1993 in Menace II Society, directed by Allen and Albert Hughes, she went on to star in The Inkwell opposite Larenz Tate and Jason’s Lyric with Allen Payne. She drew widespread praise for her first comedic performance in Keenen Ivory Wayans’ A Low Down Dirty Shame. She also turned in a standout performance in Demon Night, director Ernest Dickerson’s big screen adaptation of the popular HBO series Tales From the Crypt.

A native of Maryland, Pinkett Smith studied dance and acting at the Baltimore School of Arts and the North Carolina School of the Arts. Her big break came when she landed a role on the long-running NBC series A Different World.

Off screen, Pinkett Smith is busy with her production company 100% WOMON. She is producing a project entitled The Coldest Winter Ever along with Sista Souljah and James Lassiter as well as co-executive producing a new television sitcom with her husband for the UPN network entitled All of Us, which is based on their real life family.

 

MARY ALICE (The Oracle) is known for playing women of quiet dignity and strength. Television viewers have known her as Fred Sanford’s nemesis sister-in-law on episodes of Sanford and Son and also as the housemother with a past on A Different World. Anyone who has seen her playing wife of James Earl Jones and mother to Courtney Vance in her Tony-winning role in Fences or as the sassy sister in Having Our Say: The Delaney Sisters’ First 100 Years on Broadway is aware of the depth of her talent.

Alice has also graced the stage with roles in Trials of Jero, The Strong Breed and No Place to Be Somebody. Her feature film credits began with her debut in The Education of Sonny Carson, and she went on to appear in Beat Street, Teachers, The Inkwell, To Sleep With Anger starring Danny Glover, Awakenings starring Robin Williams, Bed of Roses starring Christian Slater and Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington.

Alice entertained audiences on the small screen by appearing in series such as Oz, L.A. Law, Laurel Avenue, Providence, Touched by an Angel, Cosby, and I’ll Fly Away, for which she earned an Emmy.

Born in Chicago, Alice began her working life as a teacher and began her acting career on stage in her hometown. Eventually, she moved to New York where she studied with Lloyd Richards, who would later direct her in her Tony-winning role in Fences.

 

The Matrix Revolutions marks the feature film debut for actress TANVEER ATWAL (Sati), a Los Angeles native of Indian heritage.

Like many young actors before her, Atwal began her career in television commercials, but her appearance in the third installment of the Matrix trilogy will be her biggest role to date.

Upon completion of the film, Atwal has since returned to the Brentwood Science Magnet School where she will complete the fourth grade. Besides acting, Atwal’s interests include reading, drawing, dancing, shopping and traveling, and spending time with her parents and younger brother. She also speaks fluent Punjabi and Hindi.

Atwal greatly enjoyed her experience on the Matrix set and thanks the Wachowski Brothers, Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Collin Chou and Mary Alice for all their help and encouragement during the making of her first film.

 

MONICA BELLUCCI (Persephone) is perhaps best known for her sizzling performance as Malena, the beautiful young widow who turns a small Italian village upside down in the film Malena by Giuseppe Tornatore.

Bellucci began her career as a model while studying law at the University of Perugia. In 1990 Dino Risi cast her for the Italian television series Vita Coi Figli and her acting career was born. She then made her feature film debut in Francesco Laudadio’s La Riffa.

Francis Coppola gave Bellucci a small role in Bram Stoker’s Dracula with Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves, and she went on to star in numerous European features. She appeared with Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman in Under Suspicion and in the French sensation Le Pacte des Loupes (Brotherhood of the Wolves). In addition to her performance as Persephone in The Matrix Reloaded, Bellucci recently starred in Gaspar Noι’s riveting Irrιversible and also appeared opposite Bruce Willis in Antoine Fuqua’s Tears of the Sun. She will next be seen in director Mel Gibson’s The Passion.

Bellucci lives in Paris and London.

 

A veteran of both film and television, IAN BLISS (Bane) made his small screen debut on the popular Australian high school drama series Heartbreak High in 1995. He followed with several notable TV appearances including Home & Away, The Lost World and Farscape, and in groundbreaking mini-series Blue Murder, Halifax f.p and Bootleg for the BBC. Soon, feature films followed with starring roles in Siam Sunset, The Bank and in the Australian short Bound. Bliss also appeared in the second installment of the Matrix trilogy, The Matrix Reloaded. He has just finished principal photography on the feature film adaptation of Marvel Comics’ Man-Thing.

Bliss graduated from the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Arts in 1993 and currently resides in Sydney, Australia with his wife, actress Jacqueline Brennan, and daughter Bailey.

 

Born in Taiwan to a large family of eight brothers and four sisters, COLLIN CHOU (Seraph) began his training in martial arts at the age of five. When he was 12, Chou started his film career as a stunt man before landing his first leading role at the age of 18. After spending two years in service for the Taiwan Army, Chou moved to Hong Kong to pursue acting.

Chou, who performs the majority of his own stunts, has exploded on the action scene and appeared in more than 30 feature films for top action directors such as Sammo Hung, Corey Yuen, Tsui Hark, Tony Ching and Yuen Wo Ping. Fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, Chou is also a former member of Sammo Hung’s Stuntman Team. Highlights of Chou’s action work include the garage fight from License to Steal and his two fights with Jet Li in Bodyguard from Beijing and My Father is a Hero.

The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions marked Chou’s first two American films. Currently living in Los Angeles, Chou and his wife Wanda recently welcomed twin sons into their family.

 

Washington D.C. native NONA GAYE (Zee) is best known for her acclaimed performance opposite Will Smith as Muhammad Ali’s second wife in Michael Mann’s Ali. Her film debut, the role prompted USA Today to call for an Oscar nomination, and Gaye went on to star in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. She recently wrapped production on The Polar Express, starring opposite Tom Hanks for director Robert Zemeckis.

Gaye appeared on stage for the first time with her father, soul legend Marvin Gaye, when she was three weeks old. She was 14 years old when she cut her first demo and was signed to Atlantic Records at 16. In 1992 she released her first album, Love for the Future, which received high praise from the music industry. In 2001 she returned to the recording studio, collaborating with Bono & Artists Against Aids Worldwide re-recording “What’s Going On” as a call to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa.

Gaye later added modeling to her career, shooting a campaign for Armani and walking the runway for Gianni Versace.

 

NATHANIEL LEES (Mifune) is an award winning theater actor with a diverse list of characters that he has portrayed on the stage. He has now taken the silver screen by storm after earning roles in The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, epic films in two of the biggest trilogies in film history.

Lees’ other film credits include The Other Side of Heaven, directed by Mitch Davies, and A Woman’s Heart. He has appeared in numerous television series such as Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules, Young Hercules, The Lost World, The Legend of William Tell and the mini-series Emma: Queen of the South Seas.

 

A native of Chicago, HARRY LENNIX (Commander Lock) most recently completed filming on Barbershop 2. Lennix may also be seen in the upcoming films The Human Stain, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman, Chrystal, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Unchain My Heart, starring Jamie Foxx and Suspect Zero, starring Carrie-Anne Moss.

A recipient of many awards for acting, Lennix began performing while a seminarian of the Roman Catholic Church. He later served as a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools for eight years. He is a member of artistic staff of The Goodman Theatre, and on the Board of Directors for Congo Square.

Lennix began his professional career while at Northwestern University (where he serves on the Board of Advisors). Thereafter he began working in many Chicago theaters. After moving to New York, he worked with Theater for a New Audience under the direction of Ms. Julie Taymor. With her, he later filmed Titus, for which he won The Golden Satellite Award from the International Press Academy.

Also with TFANA, he was part of the first American company to be invited to the Royal Shakespeare Company for a production of William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline in 2001.

Lennix currently lives in Los Angeles with his dog, Hank.

 

An accomplished actor who has graced the stage, screen, and television, HAROLD PERRINEAU (Link) has earned a well-deserved reputation as a performer willing to take on any role.

Perrineau is currently starring on stage in Suzan Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Topdog/Underdog being directed by Geoge Wolf at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Topdog/Underdog is the story of two blood brothers – Lincoln (Perrineau), a cardshark and Abraham Lincoln impersonator, and Booth (Larry Gilliard Jr.), student of the three card monty con game. The Seattle Times calls Perrineau’s performance “riveting…his rendition of a morbidly mournful blues tune is a sad-funny high point.” He will also star in this play in San Francisco from October 5th-November 16th and Los Angeles during the month of February and March 2004.

In addition to his role in The Matrix Reloaded, Perrineau most recently appeared on the big screen in Woman on Top opposite Penelope Cruz. He also starred in Malcolm D. Lee’s The Best Man opposite Taye Diggs and Nia Long. For this role, he received an Image Award nomination for “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture.” Additionally, Perrineau received the Independent Spirit Award for “Best Supporting Actor” for his portrayal of Rashid Cole in Wayne Wang’s critically acclaimed feature Smoke.

His other feature film credits include Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo+Juliet, Auster’s Lulu On The Bridge, Lee Tamahori’s The Edge opposite Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, among many others.

On television, Perrineau is best known for his role as the wheelchair bound Augustus Hill on HBO’s critically acclaimed prison drama OZ created by Tom Fontana. His other television credits include: NBC’s movie of the week An American Tempest, as well as roles on Dead Like Me, ER, Law & Order, The Cosby Show, and the critically acclaimed I’ll Fly Away.

Perrineau began his career in theater, where he acted in a number of shows including Dreamgirls, Avenue X, the Off-Broadway revival of Godspell and The Love of Bullets at the Public Theater. Most recently, he garnered critical acclaim in Joe Penhall’s Blue/Orange where he starred as a young man who received the diagnosis of a borderline personality disorder.

A native of Brooklyn, Perrineau studied music and theatre at the Shenandoah Conservatory. He also studied on scholarship at the Alvin Ailey Company.

 

Australian actor BRUCE SPENCE (The Trainman) has appeared in numerous works on stage and screen, making his film debut in the 1971 comedy Stork. Spence most recently portrayed Chum, the Aussie shark in Finding Nemo.

Genre audiences will recognize Spence from Dark City, The Road Warrior and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the latter of which garnered him a nomination for Best Supporting Actor by the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror Films.

His other film credits include The Matrix Reloaded, Queen of the Damned, Inspector Gadget 2 and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. His small screen roles have included appearances on series such as Moby Dick, Return to Jupiter, Dearest Enemy, Zucker, and Deadline.

Spence will next be seen in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King directed by Peter Jackson, Peter Pan directed by P.J. Hogan and Star Wars: Episode III directed by George Lucas.

 

 

CLAYTON WATSON (The Kid) made his feature film debut in the blockbuster The Matrix Reloaded.

Watson is no rookie to the small screen after appearing in such shows as Always Greener, High Flyers and Casino Reef. Born in Australia and raised on a sheep station, Watson studied at Melbourne’s Australian Film & Television Academy during high school.

He is currently in Australia filming Under the Radar directed by Evan Clarry.

 

BERNARD WHITE (Rama) is no stranger to the spotlight after starring in such films as City of Angels with Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage, Pay It Forward with Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey and The Scorpion King with The Rock. More recently, White appeared in the second installment of the Matrix trilogy, The Matrix Reloaded. He will next be seen in Raising Helen directed by Gary Marshall and is currently working on Wim Wenders’s Angst and Alienation in America.

On the small screen, White appeared as recurring characters on such hit shows as JAG, The West Wing, and 24. His other television credits include guest starring roles on Alias, Crossing Jordan, The Agency, CSI Miami, The X-Files, Judging Amy, ER, Touched By An Angel, The Guardian, The Practice and NYPD Blue.

White directed and wrote his first film, The Want, in 2001. In addition, White has penned several screenplays and stage plays, many of which were produced in Los Angeles. He also founded plymouth, a flourishing experimental theatre company in Hollywood. White began his career on daytime television with contract roles on General Hospital, Santa Barbara and Days of Our Lives.

Born in Sri Lanka, but raised in the U.S., White is a graduate of Michigan State University, and is currently living in Los Angeles with his wife, French-American actress Nathalie Canessa-White.

 

Since graduating from the Drama Centre, London, in 1977, Paris born French actor LAMBERT WILSON (Merovingian) has worked extensively in films with acclaimed directors such as Fred Zinneman, who gave Wilson his first starring role in Five Days One Summer opposite Sean Connery. Wilson also worked with Jodie Foster in Claude Chabrol’s The Blood of Others; with director Andre Techine for Rendez-Vous opposite Juliette Binoche; in Andrzej Wajda’s The Possessed; Peter Greenaway’s The Belly of an Architect; Carlos Saura’s El Dorado; James Ivory’s acclaimed Jefferson in Paris; Vera Belmont for both Red Kiss and Marquise; John Duigan’s The Leading Man; Alain Resnais’ Same Old Song; Jacques Doillon’s Trop (peu) d’amour; Deborah Warner’s The Last September; and Raul Ruiz’ Combat d’amour en Songe, among others.

Wilson has been nominated five times for the French Cesar Academy Awards, most recently for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Fabian Onteniente’s 1999 comedy Jetset. He will next be seen in Timeline, directed by Richard Donner, in Alain Resnais’ new picture Pas Sur la Bouche with Audrey Tatou, and Colette, a mini-series for French television directed by Nadine Trintignant.

On stage, Wilson has performed in both French and English. He starred in A Little Night Music, directed by Sean Matthias, with Judi Dench for the Royal National Theater in London in 1996, as well as in Harold Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes in 1998. His stage credits include L’Amour de L’Amour, La Machine Infernale, La Celestine, Eurydice and Ruy Blas. Wilson has also directed himself in Musset’s Les Caprices de Marianne, which opened in Peter Brooks’ Theatre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris in 1994, and subsequently toured throughout France. In 2001 he directed Kristen Scott Thomas and performed in Racine’s Berenice at the Avignon Festival and at the Chaillot National Theatre in Paris.

As a singer, Wilson recorded in 1989 an album of songs from the Great American musicals entitled Musicals. The album, released by EMI and produced by John McGlinn, formed the basis of his concert series Lambert Wilson chante at the Casino de Paris and on tour in 1990/91. In 1996 he recorded a collection of classic songs from the golden age of French cinema entitled Demon et Merveilles (Virgin Classics) and opened the new Theatre des Abbesses in Paris in April 1997 with concert performances based on these recordings. The show, also titled Demons et Merveilles, toured France and was presented in Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan during the autumn/winter of 1997.

As a narrator, Wilson has also worked under the direction of some of the world’s greatest conductors including Rostropovitch, Pretre Mazur, Dutoit and Ozawana, in works such as Debussy’s Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien, Berlioz’s Lelio, Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soledat and Schuman’s Manfred. Other recording work includes narrator of Homegger’s Le Roi David, Lelio and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex (Welster-Most EMI).

 

An award-winning stage-trained actor from Australia, ANTHONY WONG (Ghost) has played a huge diversity of roles in over 30 plays, numerous feature films and more than 30 acclaimed Australian and international television shows including All Saints, Stingers, Water Rats, Embassy, Spellbinder 2, Singapore Sling, The Saint In Australia, Xena: Warrior Princess, Border Patrol, Tanamera and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, produced by Francis Ford Coppola.

In addition to his role as Ghost in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, Wong stars as Ghost, one of two lead characters in Enter the Matrix, the top selling video game that intersects with the plot of Reloaded and reveals aspects of the story not depicted in the film.

Wong’s additional film credits include Floating Life, Lilian’s Story, Till There Was You, Seeing Red and The Reunion. Theatre highlights include his award-winning performance in Sex Diary of an Infidel, as Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew and diverse lead roles in M. Butterfly, Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love, The Swan, The Emperor Regrets and most recently the role of a Malaysian king in Coup D’Etat for Melbourne Theatre Company.

 

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

 

THE WACHOWSKI BROTHERS (Writers / Directors / Executive Producers) were born and raised in Chicago and have been working together for more than 30 years. Prior to making The Matrix trilogy, the Wachowskis wrote and directed their first feature film, Bound, a thriller starring Gina Gershon, Jennifer Tilly and Joe Pantoliano. Little else is known about them.

 

One of the most prolific and successful producers in the history of motion pictures, JOEL SILVER (Producer) has produced a catalog of over 40 films, which have earned a combined gross of close to $5 billion worldwide, averaging over $100 million per picture.

Silver’s groundbreaking 1999 production The Matrix grossed over $456 million globally, earning more than any other Warner Bros. Pictures film in the Studio’s history at the time of its release. Universally acclaimed for its powerfully innovative storytelling and visuals, The Matrix won four Academy Awards, including the award for Best Visual Effects. The first DVD release to sell one million units, The Matrix DVD was instrumental in powering the initial sale of consumer DVD machines.

To date, the second installment of the epic Matrix trilogy, The Matrix Reloaded, has earned over $735 million in worldwide box office, making it the highest-grossing film of 2003 and the highest-grossing R-rated film in history, both domestically and internationally. Reloaded also scored the record for the largest single week ever with $158.2 million and reached $150 million in a record-breaking six days domestically; internationally, it is the 10th highest grossing film of all-time, and is the first film in history to gross more than $100 million in a single weekend.

In addition to producing The Matrix Reloaded and the final explosive chapter in the Wachowski Brothers’ saga, The Matrix Revolutions, Silver produced the trilogy’s integral video game, Enter the Matrix, which features one hour of additional film footage written and directed by the Wachowskis and starring Jada Pinkett Smith and Anthony Wong, who reprise their roles from the films. Silver also executive produced The Animatrix, a groundbreaking collection of nine short films inspired by the visionary action and innovative storytelling that power The Matrix.

Silver is currently producing the supernatural thriller Gothika, starring Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr. and Penelope Cruz, through his Dark Castle Entertainment division. Formed by Silver and Robert Zemeckis in the spirit of the late horror impresario William Castle, Dark Castle has produced a string of hit films beginning with the record-breaking release of House on Haunted Hill, which opened at number one on Halloween of 1999, followed by Thirteen Ghosts in 2001 and Ghost Ship in 2002.

Most recently, Silver produced the hit films Cradle 2 the Grave, starring DMX and Jet Li; Swordfish, starring John Travolta, Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry; Exit Wounds, starring Steven Seagal and DMX; and Romeo Must Die, featuring Jet Li and Aaliyah.

While at Lawrence Gordon Productions, where he began his career and ultimately ascended to president of motion pictures, Silver associate produced The Warriors and, with Gordon, produced 48 HRS., Streets of Fire and Brewster’s Millions.

In 1985, Silver launched his Silver Pictures production banner with the breakout hit Commando, followed by Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Predator. Silver went on to produce the four-part Lethal Weapon series, as well as Die Hard, Die Hard 2: Die Harder, The Last Boy Scout, Demolition Man, Richie Rich and Conspiracy Theory. He executive produced, with Richard Donner, David Giler, Walter Hill and Robert Zemeckis, eight seasons of the award-winning HBO series Tales From the Crypt, as well as two Tales From the Crypt films.

While a student at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey in 1967, Silver and a group of his friends invented a game called Ultimate Frisbee. The fast-moving team sport has since become a global phenomenon supported by tournaments in 42 countries. One of the fastest growing sports in the world, Ultimate Frisbee was played as a medal sport in the 2001 World Games held in Akita, Japan. In 2003, players representing 46 countries competed in the World Flying Disc Federation’s World Disc Games in Santa Cruz, California.

 

In addition to The Matrix Reloaded, GRANT HILL (Executive Producer) most recently produced Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line for which he was honored with an Academy Award nomination. Previously, Hill served as the co-producer on James Cameron’s Titanic and The Ghost and the Darkness, starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer.

After completing his law degree in 1978 at the University of Melbourne, Hill moved to the Middle East where he worked for a year before relocating to Asia. Based in Thailand, he worked extensively in South Asia before returning to his native Australia in 1983. After completing a graduate degree at the newly established Australian Film School in Sydney, Hill started working in the film industry as a location manager and then as a production manager. Upon moving to the United States in 1992, he served as head of production for Village Roadshow Pictures in their Los Angeles office.

In 1999, in association with Terrence Malick, Hill set up Elizabeth Bay Productions, which currently has projects in development at several studios.

 

BRUCE BERMAN (Executive Producer) joined the production division of Warner Bros. Pictures in 1984 and rose through the executive ranks to become President of Worldwide Theatrical Production in 1989. Under his aegis, the studio produced and distributed such titles as the Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy, as well as GoodFellas, Presumed Innocent, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Batman Forever, Malcolm X, The Bodyguard, JFK, The Fugitive, Dave, A Time to Kill and Twister.

In 1996 Berman started Plan B Entertainment, the Warner Bros. Pictures-based independent production company that was later acquired by Village Roadshow Pictures. Village Roadshow Pictures, where Berman now holds the post of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, currently has 20 projects in various stages of development at Warner Bros. Pictures. Most recently, Berman executive produced the immensely successful The Matrix Reloaded, Ocean’s Eleven, Training Day, Two Weeks Notice, Cats & Dogs, Three Kings, The Matrix and Analyze This through Village Roadshow’s partnership with Warner Bros. Pictures, as well as the hit comedy Miss Congeniality, produced jointly with Warner Bros. Pictures and Castle Rock Entertainment.

Berman will serve as executive producer for the upcoming movies from Village Roadshow, which include Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Sean Penn and Tim Robbins, the thriller Taking Lives, starring Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke, the sequel to Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, and Catwoman, starring Halle Berry, all for 2004.

 

After filming Bound with Larry and Andy, BILL POPE, A.S.C. (Director of Photography) took the red pill and has been a captive of the Wachowskis for the last 5 years. With the completion of Revolutions and Reloaded, he has finally taken the blue pill and will return to blissful ignorance.

He has actually worked on other films as well, including Clueless, Army of Darkness, and Spider-Man 2.

 

OWEN PATERSON (Production Designer) won an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Production Design for Stephen Elliot’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Among his other credits are Red Planet, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, Stephen Elliot’s Welcome to Woop Woop, Race the Sun, Minnamurra, The Place at the Coast and Traveling North. Paterson also worked as art director on the Australian feature Bliss and The Coolangatta Gold.

His television credits include Noriega: God’s Favorite, The Beast and the telefilm The Riddle of the Stinson.

 

ZACH STAENBERG, A.C.E. (Editor) won an Academy Award and an American Cinema Editors’ Eddie Award for his work on Andy and Larry Wachowski’s The Matrix. Before editing The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, Staenberg edited AntiTrust, directed by Peter Howitt. He started with the Wachowski Brothers on their first feature film, Bound. His first credit was the original Police Academy.

Staenberg also received an American Cinema Editors Eddie Award and an Emmy nomination for his work on the HBO film Gotti, starring Armand Assante (who actually won the Emmy).

Staenberg graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He’s crazy about his seven year-old son. Not much more is known.

 

DON DAVIS (Music Composer and Conductor) previously collaborated with the Wachowskis when he scored their films Bound, The Matrix, and The Matrix Reloaded, as well as The Animatrix project and the video game Enter The Matrix.

His composing credits include Behind Enemy Lines, Jurassic Park III, AntiTrust, The Unsaid, House on Haunted Hill, Valentine, Warriors of Virtue, Route 9, The Lesser Evil and Blackout, as well as the telefilms Weapons of Mass Distraction for HBO, starring Ben Kingsley and Gabriel Byrne, Murder in Greenwich, Race Against Time, starring Eric Roberts, Personally Yours, Life of the Party: The Pamela Harriman Story, starring Ann-Margret, The Lake, In the Company of Spies, starring Tom Berenger and Ron Silver, A Match Made in Heaven, starring Olympia Dukakis, The Alibi, Not in this Town, In the Lake of the Woods, Leave of Absence, Murder of Innocence, A Little Piece of Heaven, Woman with a Past, Home Fires Burning and A Stoning in Fulham County.

He also composed the music for such miniseries as The Third Twin, House of Frankenstein, Robin Cook’s Invasion, Pandora’s Clock, The Beast and In the Best of Families, as well as for the TV series SeaQuest DSV, Capitol Critters, My Life and Times, Tiny Toon Adventures, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Beauty and the Beast.

 

After winning an Academy Award for his work on The Matrix, JOHN GAETA (Visual Effects Supervisor) rejoined the Wachowski Brothers for The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Prior to completing this landmark trilogy, Gaeta enjoyed a career in a little-known industry called therapeutic shock graphics. Part military intelligence, part counter-culture, he pioneered the depths on non-sensical simulation and alter-logic entertainment in pursuit of the ultimate social tranquilizer. Despite colossal failure to legally broadcast on commercial television, Gaeta looks upon his research fondly – and occasionally with some fear.

In his off time, Gaeta likes to parasail, high dive, speed skate and is a member of the local polar bear club. He’s a bad artist, an amateur hypnotist and generally distracted by the volatile machinations of unleashed Hollywood power.

Gaeta’s other film credits include acting as director on the documentaries How to Subvert a Friendly Well-Meaning Population and Why Being Struck by Lighting is Fun; as a greensman on “W” is a Dirty Word, and as a production assistant on Citizen Kane, Gaeta’s first job in Hollywood.

 

In addition to her creations for The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Matrix Revolutions, KYM BARRETT (Costume Designer) most recently designed the costumes for Gothika, starring Halle Berry, and From Hell, directed by the Hughes brothers and starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham. Her previous credits include Three Kings and Red Planet. Barrett was nominated for the CDG Award for Excellence for Costume Design for Feature Film – Period/Fantasy for her work in The Matrix. Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet served as Barrett’s first feature film as costume designer.

 

Academy Award-winning sound designer and supervising sound editor DANE A. DAVIS, MPSE was born quietly in La Mesa, California in the late fifties. From then on he was always noisy. In early adolescence Davis borrowed reel-to-reel tape recorders and experimented with ways to use them improperly. Other than his Grandfather’s clarinet, his access to legitimate musical instruments was very limited so he built and converted various illegitimate (mostly unplayable) instruments to use in conjunction with partially disassembled tape decks. His mother moved him into the garage where he continued to live noisily for more than a decade.

In high school Davis began making super-8 movies, which became a good excuse to make seemingly purposeless audio assemblages that could be repurposed as movie soundtracks. This aural intent took him to the film school of California Institute of the Arts where he confronted modular synthesizers and many new noise-producing tools. While making his own films, he continued to create soundtracks for student films and eventually mixed most of the films being made at the school.

After matriculation into the real world, Davis continued making mostly non-musical soundtracks for experimental short films and started working as a sound editor on various longer film projects. In 1986 he founded Davistracks in Hollywood in a closet of the company he worked for during the day as a sound transfer operator. As more sound design and editing work for low-budget independent movies passed through his closet, he quit his day job.

Davis continues today working primarily as a Sound Designer and Supervising Sound Editor on feature films as varied as The Matrix trilogy, Treasure Planet, and 8 Mile. He also creates sound design for TV ad campaigns like Nike Shox (Boing!) and the herd of Pirelli tires rolling across the country.

Along the way, Davis became enamored by the audio seduction of interactive game play. He still gets the shivers when reminded of how evocative the music and sound design of Myst and Doom felt in the context of exploring an unknown world. Today Davis and Davistracks are active in exploring the psycho-acoustic boundaries of interactive media as the platform technology approaches the depth and detail potential of motion pictures. He considers the application of the subjective emotional and dramatic principles of cinema sound design to the non-linear paths of game play to be the challenge of the current decade.

 

YUEN WO PING (Fight Choreographer) recently served as the Fight Choreographer on The Matrix Reloaded and on the celebrated Academy Award-winning Ang Lee film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Prior, Wo Ping collaborated with the Wachowski Brothers and choreographed The Matrix, which won him worldwide attention.

Wo Ping was born in Guangzhan, China in 1945, the eldest of 10 children. He studied Peking Opera and Kung Fu under the tutelage of his father, Yuen Siu Tin, who was also a father figure to the young Jackie Chan. Yuen Siu Tin brought his son to the attention of the well-known Wong Fei Hung series producers and Wo Ping worked on some of their films during the 1960s. He subsequently worked as a Kung Fu fighter and stuntman at Shaw Brothers and can be seen in films such as Wang Yu’s The Chinese Boxer.

By the age of 26, he had earned his first film choreography credits with the early Kung Fu hits of Ng See Yuen including Mad Killer, Bloody Fists and Secret Rivals 2. For the Shaw Brothers, Wo Ping arranged the fights for Chu Yuan’s films The Lizard and The Bastard.

In 1978 Wo Ping directed his first film, the hugely successful and influential The Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, starring the now legendary international star Jackie Chan. He went on to direct another Jackie Chan feature, Drunken Master, as well as Dance Of The Drunk Mantis which starred his brother, Sunny Yuen. Wo Ping also worked for Golden Harvest, directing the Wong Fei Hung films Magnificent Butcher and Dreadnought.

In 1979 Wo Ping formed his own company and produced and choreographed Tsai Siu Ming’s Buddhist Fist the following year. He directed his protιgι, Donnie Yen, in Drunken Tai Chi, followed by Tiger Cage, In The Line Of Duty 4 and Tiger Cage 2.

The revival of traditional Kung Fu movies saw Wo Ping work on the fight sequences of Tsui Hark’s Once Upon A Time In China films with Jet Li, and on Wong Ching’s Last Hero In China. His other credits include the Kung Fu epics Tai Chi Master and Wing Chun. In 1993, Wo Ping directed one of his finest films, Iron Monkey, again starring Donnie Yen, and in 1994, he was fight choreographer on the film Fist of Legend. It was his work on this film that first caught the attention of the Wachowski brothers.

Wo Ping’s current projects include Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

[epote]

Finally, here's the Official Cast list from WB...

 

Warner Brothers has finally released the official end credits on their Advertising & Publicity Page from which I post the cast list here:

 

CAST

 

The Oracle MARY ALICE

 

Sati TANVEER K. ATWAL

 

The Architect HELMUT BAKAITIS

 

Coat Check Girl KATE BEAHAN

 

Councillor Grace FRANCINE BELL

 

Persephone MONICA BELLUCCI

 

Charra RACHEL BLACKMAN

 

Deus Ex Machina (Voice) HENRY BLASINGAME

 

Bane IAN BLISS

 

Q-Ball Gang Member #1 DAVID BOWERS

 

Operations Officer Mattis ZEKE CASTELLI

 

Seraph COLLIN CHOU

 

Maggie ESSIE DAVIS

 

Morpheus LAURENCE FISHBURNE

 

Zee NONA GAYE

 

Q-Ball Gang Member #2 DION HORSTMANS

 

Sparks LACHY HULME

 

Mauser CHRIS KIRBY

 

Colt PETER LAMB

 

Mifune NATHANIEL LEES

 

Commander Lock HARRY LENNIX

 

AK ROBERT MAMMONE

 

First Operator At Command JOE MANNING

 

Tower Soldier MAURICE MORGAN

 

Trinity CARRIE-ANNE MOSS

 

Kamala THARINI MUDALIAR

 

Zion Gate Operator RENE NAUFAHU

 

Councillor Dillard ROBYN NEVIN

 

Officer Wirtz GENEVIEVE O'REILLY

 

Link HAROLD PERRINEAU

 

Niobe JADA PINKETT SMITH

 

Second Operator At Command KITTRICK REDMOND

 

Neo KEANU REEVES

 

Lock's Lieutenant RUPERT REID

 

Deus Ex Machina KEVIN M. RICHARDSON

 

Roland DAVID ROBERTS

 

Trainman BRUCE SPENCE

 

Dock Sergeant RICHARD SYDENHAM

 

Radio Bunker Man CHE TIMMINS

 

Cas GINA TORRES

 

Kid CLAYTON WATSON

 

Agent Smith HUGO WEAVING

 

Councillor West CORNEL WEST

 

Rama-Kandra BERNARD WHITE

 

Merovingian LAMBERT WILSON

 

Ghost ANTHONY WONG

 

Councillor Hamann ANTHONY ZERBE

 

And finally: This film has been rated R by the MPAA for sci-fi violence and brief sexual content.

 

 

Arcitecht in Revolutions, but no Twins!

[KaizerSoze]

Paides,edw Agglia arxise idi i diafimisi gia to Revolutions me moto :"Everything that has a begining has an end" me imerominia 5 Noemvri kai wra 2 p.m.!Ara isxyei ayto pou legane pws to Revolutions den tha bgei mono tin idia mera Pagosmiws alla kai tin idia wra???(Thelan na to kanoun kai sto Reloaded alla arkestikan sto idia mera)