Laurence Fishburne reveals the filmmakers turned down his offer to reprise Morpheus in The Matrix Resurrections, but he remains open to returning in a fifth installment of the franchise if the circumstances are right. During an appearance on The View, Fishburne discussed why he wasn’t in Resurrections. He shared that he expressed interest in coming back to the landmark sci-fi series, though the feeling was not mutual. He added that he would still return for a Matrix 5, but only if he likes the script and the creative team reaches out to him with an offer.
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“It depends on the circumstances, who is involved, how well the script has been written. If they offer [it to] me,” Fishburne said. “I offered my services to the fourth Matrix, and they didn’t respond well to that. It’s not like I didn’t say, ‘I’d like to offer my services.’ I did. And for whatever reason, that didn’t happen.”
Fishburne portrayed Morpheus in all three installments of the original Matrix trilogy released between 1999-2003. For Resurrections, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II played a different version of the character. The recasting was explained in-universe by having the new Morpheus be a Morpheus/Agent Smith hybrid program that was created by Neo. Resurrections strongly hints that the real Morpheus died during the 60-year time jump between The Matrix Revolutions and Resurrections.
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A fifth Matrix movie is currently in development, with Drew Goddard onboard to write and direct. The film does not have a release date, and there have been no casting announcements as of this writing.
Fishburne didn’t get into too much detail about the Matrix Resurrections situation, so it’s unclear who “didn’t respond well” to his offer and why. Morpheus dies in the MMO game The Matrix Online, which is considered official franchise canon. It’s possible the filmmakers wanted to honor that development and opted to take things in a different direction for the film. Of course, Trinity dies in The Matrix Revolutions and Carrie-Anne Moss reprises the role in Resurrections, as the machines revived Trinity and reinserted her into a new version of the Matrix. So if the creative team had wanted, there was likely a way they could have retconned Morpheus’ death to bring Fishburne back. Perhaps the nature of the way the character was rewritten (blending aspects of Morpheus and Agent Smith) meant it made more sense to have a new actor bring this different version to life.
After his experience with Resurrections, Fishburne’s stance on The Matrix 5 is understandable. He isn’t going to actively campaign for the role, but it’s encouraging that he’s still open returning if everything falls into place. That means if he does come back, fans will know Goddard came up with something worthwhile that puts a fresh and exciting spin on the fan-favorite character. It would be a shame if Fishburne’s Morpheus was just shoehorned into the script in an effort to make things up to the actor. If he’s going to reprise the part after being away for more than 20 years, it deserves to be for something meaningful.
