Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has signed up to play a lead role in Matrix 4.
The new instalment in the sci-fi series was officially confirmed back in August.
As Variety reports, the actor, who is most famous for starring in 2017’s The Greatest Showman and the following year’s Aquaman (as well as the Striking Vipers episode of Black Mirror),will join the previously confirmed Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss alongside director Lana Wachowski in the new film.
Announcing Matrix 4 earlier this year, Warner Bros. Picture Group chairman Toby Emmerich said: “We could not be more excited to be re-entering The Matrix with Lana. Lana is a true visionary – a singular and original creative filmmaker – and we are thrilled that she is writing, directing and producing this new chapter in The Matrix universe.”
Reeves will once again portray Neo, with Moss returning as Trinity, with both reprising their roles for the new edition.
No release date has yet been confirmed for Matrix 4, but sources tell Variety that production is set to begin at the start of 2020.
“Strange though it may seem now, there once was a time when The Matrix felt like a premonition. A heavy-handed allegory for the rise of technology, the corporate power structures behind it, and the impact such things have on the populace: its impact was seismic.
“Like The Truman Show before it, the Wachowskis’ filmic breakthrough was so influential it oversaw an upsurge in believers of simulation theory, the philosophical concept at the heart of its narrative. Throughout the early 00s, you were never more than a stone’s throw or a dodgy uni house party away from someone proclaiming that “We’re living in The Matrix, maaan.”