This Oscar-Winning DP Is Heading to 'The Matrix 4'
John Toll, the Oscar-winning cinematographer of Braveheart, is boarding Neo and Trinity's next mission.
The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Toll is in negotiations to shoot the new untitled Matrix movie from director Lana Wachowski.
Toll, who made Oscar history by winning back-to-back awards for his work on 1994's Legend of the Fall and 1995's Braveheart, is no stranger to blockbuster fare. He previously worked on 2013's Marvel hit, Iron Man 3. This production will reunite the legendary DP with Lana; the two (and Lilly Wachowski) previously shot Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending together. Toll also worked with the Wachowskis on their Netflix series, Sense8.
Lana, who co-created and directed the previous Matrix trilogy with sibling Lilly, is directing this project solo.
The fourth film in the franchise will see Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss reprise their iconic roles of Neo and Trinity, respectively. Lawrence Fishburne's Morpheus may be recast with a younger actor, according to reports.
Story details about the film are being kept locked up tighter than the The Merovingian's hairline, but what we do is that fans can expect to see Neo and Trinity, who both died at the end of 2003's Matrix Revolutions, "alive" -- in a sense -- and lurking over the current state of the machines' virtual reality.
Toll is an exceptional hire, one worth getting excited about. Anyone who has seen his work in the aforementioned films, along with The Thin Red Line and Almost Famous, they know that Toll has an exceptional eye and visual style that finds balance between anamorphic and emotional spectacle. That's the key to any blockbuster: Making the action, the eye candy, worth caring about.
If anyone can revitalize the franchise's digital-green world, it's Toll.
Toll's next film, the Harriet Tubman biopic Harriet, directed by the crazy-talented Kasi Lemmons and starring the great Cynthia Erivo, hits theaters Nov. 1.
