Before making their directorial debuts with the inaugural entry in the John Wick series, Chad Stahelski and David Leitch cut their teeth on the Hollywood stunt circuit. Among other big action blockbusters, they lent their physical talents to the Matrix trilogy. Now, they’re making their return to that franchise with the highly-anticipated fourth installment, due out next year. In a new interview with Collider, Stahelski and Leitch discussed their involvement with The Matrix 4. Specifically, they explained how their duties on the new film differ from what they did on the previous installments.
Although Stahelski and Leitch have both demonstrated their skills behind a camera over the last few years (Stahelski with the John Wick films, Leitch with Deadpool 2 and Hobbs & Shaw), neither is presiding over The Matrix 4’s second unit. That’s because director Lana Wachowski is opting to direct every fight scene herself this time around.
“It’s more about the creative concept of some of the choreography and backing them up with stuff,” said Stahelski. “Other than the Matrixes, most of their stuff…what makes [Lana] so great is she directs her own action. We’ve had second unit directors on some of the Matrixes just because of the logistics involved. But of late, and especially on Matrix 4, she’s directing her own action. The second units for them are mostly establishing shots, the B-sides of the some of the compositions for some locations. But Lana, she does her own action. She weaves it into the main unit stuff, which is why their stuff looks so good.”
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The Matrix 4 is bringing back several key cast members from the original trilogy, including Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss. However, Stahelski also enthused over how the sequel reunites several behind-the-scenes crew members from the first three movies as well.
“They were really cool,” added Stahelski. “They asked us to help out with the choreography and some of the physical training for the guys. I’m helping out a little bit for a sequence, I think Dave’s helping out for a sequence. Lana’s come back with a lot of love to have a pseudo-family reunion, so that’s been a lot of fun. It’s been good to see a lot of the crew members again. We just finished doing a sequence in San Francisco before the pandemic started.”
Production on The Matrix 4 was halted last month due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. Warner Bros. has yet to announce whether the shutdown will affect the film’s May 21, 2021 release date.
Are you happy to hear that Chad Stahelski and David Leitch are coming back for The Matrix 4? Let us know in the comment section below!
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