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SYFY WIRE Warner Bros.

Figuring out more Mad Max, The Matrix movies remains priority for Warner Bros.

By Josh Weiss
Mad Max: Fury Road Tom Hardy

During a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times, Warner Bros. CEO, Kevin Tsujihara, talked about the studio's recent projects and what he'd like to see come down the pipeline. No too surprisingly, he's all for building on two major sci-fi franchises currently in the studio's stable.

"We have incredible franchises on the features side such as The Matrix. We’d love to work with George Miller on furthering the Mad Max franchise," he said.

Mad Max: Fury Road was released in 2015, arriving in theaters 30 years after the third film in the series, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The film saw Mel Gibson replaced with Tom Hardy in the title role. Fury Road was a critical and financial success, nabbing several technical Oscars at the 88th Academy Awards. It was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, but lost to Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Birdman.

The Matrix brand is bit less fresh, but still a major cultural touchstone. The third and final film, The Matrix Revolutions, debuted in 2003 to a less-than-warm reception from hardcore fans. Even so, enough time has passed for Warner Bros. to start looking into ways it can reinvigorate the IP. Who knows? They could even bring The Wachowski siblings back to help flesh out a new roadmap.

During his interview, Tsujihara also addressed the disappointing performances of two big franchise sequels that recently underperformed at the box office, The Crimes of Grindelwald and The Lego Movie 2.

"The second film didn’t perform as well as the first, but I think we know what we need to do to get the third film hopefully even better than the first one," he said of Fantastic Beasts, a series planned to be told over five movies. "And J.K. Rowling is really working hard now on that third script, and we’re going to get it right. She has an incredible vision of where she wants to go with this that is incredibly exciting."

When it came to Lego, he added:

"It didn’t do as well as tracking would’ve suggested, which was a little puzzling. The first movie was so fresh and so different. We need to continually rethink the experience, but the Lego brand is incredibly strong. On the game side, it’s been an incredible franchise."

Do you want to see more installments in the Mad Max and Matrix franchises? If so, what would you like to see them explore? If you don't want more movies, why not? Sound off in the comments below!