10 Movie Franchises That Died In 2021
2. The Matrix
No major franchise movie released this past year proved more bewildering or polarising than The Matrix Resurrections, arriving almost 20 years after The Matrix Revolutions seemingly ended the series on its own divisive, commercially underwhelming note.
Well, Lana Wachowski's fascinatingly unsatisfying beast of a fourth film almost seems to exist in spite of itself.
It's a deeply meta sequel that lampoons the very idea of belated sequels and sees Wachowski quite literally dressing down Warner Bros. in the movie for trying to keep the franchise alive without her.
Despite enormous hype, The Matrix Resurrections opened to mixed critical reviews and an underwhelming "B-" CinemaScore, representing the series' lowest audience score to date.
With lukewarm word-of-mouth quickly spreading, it's little surprise that the $190 million blockbuster, which also released on HBO Max the same day, fell far short of financial expectations and is set to become one of the biggest box office bombs of the last few years.
Yet given that Wachowski insists this will be her final Matrix film, it's perhaps fitting that she's most likely killed the IP off for good, ensuring that Warner Bros. won't want to roll the dice on the Matrix again anytime soon.
Perhaps it'll end up retooled as an HBO Max series or given a full reboot in 15-20 years, but this iteration of the franchise with these characters hasn't got a pulse to speak of - and that's probably for the best, honestly.