10 Comic Book Movies That Aren't Based On Comic Books

3. The Matrix

Creative partnership the Wachowskis left a sizeable mark on Hollywood with the opening chapter of their Matrix trilogy. Keanu Reeves took a trip into Wonderland when he discovered the world as we know it was in fact a battery bank for a machine race, and humanity lived in a dream state whilst they leeched our energy reserves. Cue a cyber-bucketload of martial arts, headache-inducing stunts and slo-mo effects. The 1999 movie owed a lot to Hong Kong cinema, but also paid a major due to the comic book world. Indeed, the directors had to get two well-known artists (Hard Boiled's Geoff Darrow and Marvel's Steve Skroce) to create an elaborate storyboard in order to convince Warner Bros to sink funds into the project. Laurence Fishburne's Morpheus was inspired by his namesake in Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Imagery contained in The Matrix, including matter-bending henchmen in cool sunglasses and mechanized squid soldiers the Sentinels, were straight out of a comics franchise. The Wachowskis' background as Marvel writers meant they wasted no time in exploring their concept via those platforms, converting it into a long-running print series.