Bet you didn’t see this one coming.
Neil Patrick Harris, star of Doogie Howser, M.D. and How I Met Your Mother has been cast in Lana Wachowski’s upcoming Matrix sequel, Variety reports.
Harris’ role in the fourth Matrix film, which will feature the return of Keanu Reeves as the series’ hero, Neo, is currently unknown. Harris joins Carrie-Anne Moss, who will once again play Matrix femme fatale Trinity, and Aquaman star Yahya Abdul-Mateen in the movie.
While Harris is mostly known for his comedic performances, which include the previously mentioned sitcoms, a villainous turn in Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the titular role in Joss Whedon’s web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, he has showed a more serious side lately via parts like an appearance in 2014’s Gone Girl and a Tony-winning performance in the Broadway version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
The Matrix 4 was announced last August, just in time for the 20th anniversary of the Wachowskis’ groundbreaking sci-fi action film. The fourth installment in the series will be written and directed by Lana Wachowski, who co-directed the original Matrix trilogy with her sister Lily, off of a script by Aleksandar Hemon and the Wachowski’s Cloud Atlas collaborator David Mitchell.
The Matrix 4 doesn’t have a release date, although the film is expected to enter production in early 2020.
News about a potential Matrix sequel leaked last spring, when John Wick director Chad Stahelski said the Wachowskis were working on a follow-up to their flagship franchise. Stahelski was Keanu Reeves’ stunt double on The Matrix, and served as stunt coordinator for the second and third films.
Collectively, the first three Matrix movies have earned more than $1.6 billion at the global box office and spawned numerous video games, comic books, and animated spinoffs. The last Matrix movie, The Matrix: Revelations, hit theaters in 2003. More recently, the first movie returned to theaters this summer in a stunning Dolby Cinema re-release that made the 20-year-old film look better than ever.
Warner Bros. and Lana Wachowski haven’t revealed anything about The Matrix 4‘s plot, but we have some things we’d like to see in the upcoming sequel. Warner Bros., if you’re listening: You know where to find us.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.