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Laurence Fishburne offered to return as Morpheus in The Matrix: Resurrections but the producers weren't up for it
The actor's offer was rejected and the role of Morpheus was eventually recast for The Matrix: Resurections in 2021
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When The Matrix: Resurrections hit theaters back in 2021, most of the main cast returned. Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss were back in their iconic roles as Neo and Trinity, but two notable absences were Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith and Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus. We don’t know about Weaving, but it turns out that Laurence Fishburne was absolutely up for returning to The Matrix – but the producers, for some reason, didn’t take him up on his offer.
During a recent appearance on The View, Laurence Fishburne was asked if he would ever return to The Matrix series. “It depends on the circumstances – who is involved, how well the script is written, if they offer me,” Fishburne explained before adding, “I offered my services for the fourth ‘Matrix,’ and they didn’t respond well.”
“So, hey, it’s not like I didn’t say, ‘Oh, I’d like to offer my services.’ I did. And for whatever reason, that didn’t happen. Okay. But that’s the truth. So, we’ll see,” he added. He didn’t say exactly why his offer was rejected, but it sounds like he might have asked for more money than the producers were willing to pay. That would be the most obvious answer, but it is possible that there was another barrier that kept Laurence Fishburne from returning for The Matrix: Resurrections.
We always assumed that a big reason that Fishburne didn’t return for the new Matrix film was because his character died in The Matrix video game, which is still considered canon in the franchise, so that might have been a factor. When the producers didn’t take up Laurence Fishburne on his offer to return for The Matrix: Resurrections, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was eventually cast as an amalgamation of Morpheus and Agent Smith in the movie, leaving us wondering what might have been.
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