Latest news with #TheMatrix
Los Angeles Times
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
L.A.'s Sphere-like venue Cosm turns ‘The Matrix' into an immersive experience
When you watch 'The Matrix' at Cosm, you're essentially seeing a film within a film. A shot inside an apartment becomes a glimpse into an entire complex. A fight scene on a rooftop is now one small part of a giant cityscape. Look to the left, and a once off-screen helicopter is suddenly entirely visible. Cosm has won attention and a fan base for its focus on sports programming. A domed, 87-foot-diameter wraparound screen surrounds audiences at the Inglewood venue, creating an illusion of in-the-flesh presence. Can't make it to that NBA Finals or World Series game? Cosm wants to be your fallback plan, combining front-row-like seats with unexpected views. And now, Cosm aims to redefine the moviegoing experience. A revival of 'The Matrix' opens Thursday in what the company calls 'shared reality,' a marketing term that ultimately means newly created CGI animation towers, over, under and around the original 1999 film. Cosm has in the past shown largely short-form original programming, and 'The Matrix' marks its first foray into feature-length films. The hope is to not only see the film with fresh eyes but to create a sensation of being in the same environment as Keanu Reeves' Neo, Carrie-Anne Moss' Trinity and Laurence Fishburne's Morpheus. 'The Matrix' is an ideal film for this experiment, its anti-AI message decidedly topical while its themes grapple with dual visions of reality. There's been a host of so-called immersive ambitions to alter the moviegoing experience over the decades, be it the on-and-off flirtation with interactive cinema, a brief trend in the '90s that recently lived again on Netflix (see 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch'), to more recent 4-DX theaters with movement-enabled seats (see the light, water and wind effects of 'Twisters'). Cosm, like the bigger, more live music-focused Sphere in Las Vegas, seems to have a different pitch: an all-encompassing screen that can provide previously unexplored vantage points, even at times creating a theme park ride-like sense of movement. Cosm's interpretation of 'The Matrix,' a collaboration with experiential creative agency Little Cinema, envelopes audiences from its opening action sequence when a nighttime view of a city skyline seemingly places us on a rooftop. Elsewhere, Neo's office building becomes a maze of cubicles. The film's centerpiece red pill versus blue pill moment centers the frame among oversized, glowing capsules. When Neo awakens, we are lost amid mountainous, industrial pods. The challenge: To not make it feel like a gimmick, yet to also know when to pull back and let the film stand for itself. 'The No. 1 core principle was to enhance and don't overshadow,' says Jay Rinsky, founder of Little Cinema. 'Metaphorically for us, the movie itself is the lead singer and we are the backing band. Let the movie be the star. Let it sing. And basically follow the key beats — follow the sound design, the emotional moments and enhance the action.' The accompanying images get more aggressive as the film races toward its climax. The animations are most effective when they're expanding the screen rather than echoing the action — showing us the viewpoint of a careening helicopter for instance, rather than repeating or mimicking a beat of the film. Having seen 'The Matrix' before, I know the story and its cadence, and was perhaps more willing to turn my attention away from the film, which is placed in the center of the screen and often set within a picture frame. In turn, I was dazzled by the scenes shot inside Morpheus' hovercraft the Nebuchadnezzar, in which the vessel's surroundings — its buzzing, electrical core and its assortment of monitors — are fleshed out around the screen. Film purists, I wonder, may balk at seeing images beyond the director's vision — Rinsky says he hasn't been in touch with directors Lana or Lilly Wachowski — but I found it could help build a world, especially for revival cinema on a second or third viewing. Expectedly, the film's final act becomes a bevy of secondary action. Bullets that fly off the frame of the film now find a landing spot, as building walls shatter and crumble around us. Cosm's screen is crisp and encompassing enough that it can mimic movement or flight, and thankfully this is used sparingly, twisting only when the film's characters take to the skies. When Cosm opened last summer Chief Executive Jeb Terry stressed the venue wasn't in the business of showing films, wanting to focus on sports or original programming. 'We're not a first-run theater,' said Terry. 'We're leaning into the experiential side.' Seemingly, 'The Matrix' fits this plan, as the accompanying CGI images have been in the works since about August 2024, says Rinsky, with the bulk of the heavy lifting beginning in January. Rinsky acknowledges 'The Matrix' fits the format particularly well because it 'plays in a realm of fantasy that allows you to change environments around,' but is quick to add that Cosm and Little Cinema hope to expand the program of enhancing Hollywood products. 'It is a bit of a mission and a philosophy,' he says. 'Every film in every genre has its own unique propositions and can be adopted and suited well. We're excited about horror, and we're excited about comedy.' Future projects have not yet been announced. Cosm also has a venue in Dallas, with spots in Atlanta and Detroit on the way. Rinsky's hope, of course, is that Cosm someday has enough market penetration that filmmakers can create the format from the ground up. 'I'm really bullish about this being the new cinema,' Rinsky says. 'I think in five to 10 years, there will be 100 of these around. Once it hits scale, then big studios will have releases created specifically for this format.' It's an optimistic view of the future that's arriving at a time of disruption in Hollywood, from shake-ups due to the streaming market to artificial intelligence. For Cosm, it's the early days, but it's a vision that needs neither a red nor blue pill. Its outlook is much more rose-colored.
Express Tribune
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Immerse yourself into 'The Matrix'
In a Los Angeles theatre, a trench coat-wearing Neo bends backwards to dodge bullets that spiral over the viewer's head, as the sound of gunfire erupts from everywhere. This new immersive experience is designed to be a red pill moment that will get film fans off their couches at a time when the movie industry is desperate to bring back audiences, as reported by AFP. Cosm, which has venues in Los Angeles and Dallas, is launching its dome-style screen and 3D sets in June with a "shared reality" version of The Matrix, the cult 1999 film starring Keanu Reeves as a man who suddenly learns his world is a fiction. "We believe the future will be more immersive and more experiential," said Cosm president Jeb Terry at a recent preview screening. "It's trying to create an additive, a new experience, ideally non-cannibalistic, so that the industry can continue to thrive across all formats." Cinema audiences were already dwindling when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, shuttering theaters at a time when streaming was exploding. With ever bigger and better TVs available for the home, the challenge for theater owners is to offer something that film buffs cannot get in their living room. Prestige projects like Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning or Christopher Nolan's Oscar-winning Oppenheimer increasingly opt for the huge screens and superior film quality of IMAX. But Cosm and other projects like it want to go one step further, collaborating with designers who have worked with Cirque du Soleil to create an environment in which the viewer feels like they are inside the film. For filmmakers, it's all about how you place the cameras and where you capture the sound, said Jay Rinsky, founder of Little Cinema, a creative studio specialising in immersive experiences. "We create sets like the Parisian opera, let the movie be the singer, follow the tone, highlight the emotions through light, through production design, through 3D environments," he said. The approach, he said, felt particularly well suited to The Matrix, which he called "a masterpiece of cinema, but done as a rectangle." For the uninitiated: Reeves's Neo is a computer hacker who starts poking around in a life that doesn't quite seem to fit. A mysterious Laurence Fishburne offers him a blue pill that will leave him where he is, or a red pill that will show him he is a slave whose body is being farmed by AI machines while his conscious lives in a computer simulation. There follows much gunfire, lots of martial arts and some mysticism, along with a romance between Neo and Trinity, played by the leather-clad Carrie-Anne Moss. The Matrix in shared reality kicks off with a choice of cocktails – blue or red, of course – which are consumed as the audience sits surrounded by high-definition screens. Shifting perspectives place the viewer inside Neo's office cubicle, or seemingly in peril. "They're sometimes inside the character's head," said Rinsky. "The world changes as you look up and down for trucks coming at you." The result impressed those who were at the preview screening. "It just did feel like an experience," influencer Vince Rossi told AFP. "It almost feels like you're at a theme park for a movie."
RTÉ News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
'The Matrix is everywhere': cinema bets on immersion (not The Immersion)
In a Los Angeles cinema, a trench coat-wearing Neo bends backwards to dodge bullets that spiral over the viewer's head, as the sound of gunfire erupts from everywhere. This new immersive experience is designed to be a red pill moment that will get film fans off their couches at a time when the movie industry is desperate to bring back audiences. Cosm, which has venues in Los Angeles and Dallas, is launching its dome-style screen and 3D sets in June with a "shared reality" version of The Matrix, the cult 1999 film starring Keanu Reeves as a man who suddenly learns his world is a fiction. "We believe the future will be more immersive and more experiential," said Cosm president Jeb Terry at a recent preview screening. "It's trying to create an additive, a new experience, ideally non-cannibalistic, so that the industry can continue to thrive across all formats." Cinema audiences were already dwindling when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, shuttering screens at a time when streaming was exploding. With ever bigger and better TVs available for the home, the challenge for cinema owners is to offer something that movie buffs cannot get in their living room. Prestige projects like Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning or Christopher Nolan's Oscar-winning Oppenheimer increasingly opt for the huge screens and superior film quality of IMAX. But Cosm and other projects like it want to go one step further, collaborating with designers who have worked with Cirque du Soleil to create an environment in which the viewer feels like they are inside the film. For filmmakers, it's all about how you place the cameras and where you capture the sound, said Jay Rinsky, founder of Little Cinema, a creative studio specialising in immersive experiences. "We create sets like the Parisian opera, let the movie be the singer, follow the tone, highlight the emotions... through light, through production design, through 3D environments," he said. The approach, he said, felt particularly well suited to The Matrix, which he called "a masterpiece of cinema, but done as a rectangle." For the uninitiated: Reeves's Neo is a computer hacker who starts poking around in a life that doesn't quite seem to fit. A mysterious Laurence Fishburne offers him a blue pill that will leave him where he is, or a red pill that will show him he is a slave whose body is being farmed by AI machines while his consciousness lives in a computer simulation. There follows much gunfire, lots of martial arts, and some mysticism, along with a romance between Neo and Trinity, played by the leather-clad Carrie-Anne Moss. The Matrix in shared reality kicks off with a choice of cocktails - blue or red, of course - which are consumed as the audience sits surrounded by high-definition screens. Shifting perspectives place the viewer inside Neo's office cubicle, or seemingly in peril. "They're sometimes inside the character's head," said Rinsky. "The world changes as you look up and down for trucks coming at you." The result impressed those who were at the preview screening. "It just did feel like an experience," influencer Vince Rossi told AFP. "It felt like you're at a theme park for a movie almost."
Japan Today
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
'The Matrix is everywhere': Cinema bets on immersion
The LA-based Cosm theater has worked to create an environment in which the viewer feels like they are inside the film By Paula RAMON In a Los Angeles theater, a trench coat-wearing Neo bends backwards to dodge bullets that spiral over the viewer's head, as the sound of gunfire erupts from everywhere. This new immersive experience is designed to be a red pill moment that will get film fans off their couches at a time when the movie industry is desperate to bring back audiences. Cosm, which has venues in Los Angeles and Dallas, is launching its dome-style screen and 3D sets in June with a "shared reality" version of "The Matrix," the cult 1999 film starring Keanu Reeves as a man who suddenly learns his world is a fiction. "We believe the future will be more immersive and more experiential," said Cosm president Jeb Terry at a recent preview screening. "It's trying to create an additive, a new experience, ideally non-cannibalistic, so that the industry can continue to thrive across all formats." Cinema audiences were already dwindling when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, shuttering theaters at a time when streaming was exploding. With ever bigger and better TVs available for the home, the challenge for theater owners is to offer something that movie buffs cannot get in their living room. Prestige projects like Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible -- The Final Reckoning" or Christopher Nolan's Oscar-winning "Oppenheimer" increasingly opt for the huge screens and superior film quality of IMAX. But Cosm and other projects like it want to go one step further, collaborating with designers who have worked with Cirque du Soleil to create an environment in which the viewer feels like they are inside the film. For filmmakers, it's all about how you place the cameras and where you capture the sound, said Jay Rinsky, founder of Little Cinema, a creative studio specializing in immersive experiences. "We create sets like the Parisian opera, let the movie be the singer, follow the tone, highlight the emotions... through light, through production design, through 3D environments," he said. The approach, he said, felt particularly well suited to "The Matrix," which he called "a masterpiece of cinema, but done as a rectangle." For the uninitiated: Reeves's Neo is a computer hacker who starts poking around in a life that doesn't quite seem to fit. A mysterious Laurence Fishburne offers him a blue pill that will leave him where he is, or a red pill that will show him he is a slave whose body is being farmed by AI machines while his conscious lives in a computer simulation. There follows much gunfire, lots of martial arts and some mysticism, along with a romance between Neo and Trinity, played by the leather-clad Carrie-Anne Moss. "The Matrix" in shared reality kicks off with a choice of cocktails -- blue or red, of course -- which are consumed as the audience sits surrounded by high-definition screens. Shifting perspectives place the viewer inside Neo's office cubicle, or seemingly in peril. "They're sometimes inside the character's head," said Rinsky. "The world changes as you look up and down for trucks coming at you." The result impressed those who were at the preview screening. "It just did feel like an experience," influencer Vince Rossi told AFP. "It felt like you're at a theme park for a movie almost." © 2025 AFP
Business Recorder
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Recorder
Rome's ‘Hollywood on the Tiber' plans comeback despite Trump tariff threat
ROME: Europe's largest film studio Cinecitta is aiming to re-launch Italy as a movie powerhouse, even as U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on foreign productions cast a shadow over the film industry globally. Cinecitta, the homonymous company that manages Rome's historic film studio, approved a five-year plan this week backed by the EU's post-COVID Recovery Fund, which includes building new high-tech sound stages and boosting production capacity by 60% by 2026. 'We want to lead the game,' said CEO Manuela Cacciamani. 'Cinecitta must be a factory that works at full capacity… with excellence as a minimum standard.' Founded in 1937 under Benito Mussolini's fascist rule, Cinecitta became known as the 'Hollywood on the Tiber'. It has hosted over 3,000 films, attracting world-renowned directors such as Martin Scorsese, Federico Fellini and Francis Ford Coppola. The company is targeting revenue of 51.9 million euros ($58.8 million) in 2029, almost double the 2024 figure, and aims to turn a 4.3-million-euro net profit after a loss of 11.6 million euros last year. Trump has said he will impose a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the United States to save Hollywood from 'a very fast death', but has issued few details on how the levy would work. The tariff plan threatens to disrupt the current industry set-up, in which big U.S. productions rely on the services of studios around the world that can provide expertise, cheaper costs and striking location scenery. Trump's sweeping tariffs were temporarily reinstated by a federal appeals court on Thursday, a day after a U.S. trade court blocked them, ruling Trump had exceeded his authority. 'The Matrix is everywhere': cinema bets on immersion Cacciamani told Reuters Cinecitta was monitoring 'with the utmost care' developments regarding the tariff threat. 'The hope is that two historic powers of cinema worldwide, (Italy and the U.S.) which owe so much to each other, will continue to cooperate,' she said. Italy's tax credit of up to 40% for film production is 'among the most competitive worldwide', Cinecitta said, helping attract some of last year's international successes such as 'Emilia Perez' and the papal thriller 'Conclave'. Among projects slotted for filming in Cinecitta this year is Mel Gibson's 'The Resurrection of The Christ', a sequel to his 2004 'The Passion of The Christ'. Gibson is one of Trump's 'Special Ambassadors' in Hollywood, tasked with rescuing the U.S. film industry alongside actors Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone. His next film, being shot in Italy, would be exposed to the tariff.
