Does Matrix sequel, Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss were immediately announced as rebooting back into the franchise also, despite their respective characters both dying in the original trilogy's finale. Conspicuous by his absence was Laurence Fishburne, who famously played the inspiring human resistance fighter and rave enthusiast known as Morpheus. Rumors claiming Yahya Abdul-Mateen II had been cast as a younger version of Morpheus in The Matrix Resurrections, edging out his predecessor, soon began to swirl.
Since then, the Warner Bros. marketing machine has kicked into top gear, with a volley of trailers, TV segments and online clips each teasing different fractions of The Matrix Resurrections... and Laurence Fishburne is nowhere to be seen in any of them. Keanu Reeves' Neo and Carrie-Anne Moss' Trinity predictably take center stage, while Yahya Abdul-Mateen adopts a very Morpheus-esque role - offering Neo the colored pills, training him in a dojo battle, speaking in unnecessarily vague riddles, etc. The Matrix Resurrections trailer footage seemingly confirms Abdul-Mateen as the "new" Morpheus, offering no sign that Laurence Fishburne's original has any part to play.
Fishburne himself has consistently and graciously denied having any involvement in The Matrix Resurrections, insisting he isn't in the sequel, and wasn't asked to be in the sequel. During this era of intense Marvel secrecy, however, such denials have become all but meaningless - for better or worse - leaving the door ajar for a potential surprise Fishburne cameo in The Matrix Resurrections, despite the actor's stance. Certainly, the introduction of Yahya Abdul-Mateen's Morpheus doesn't completely rule that out. Judging from trailer footage, Abdul-Mateen is a digital reconstruction based on the original Morpheus. He isn't Laurence Fishburne's character with his youth restored, or a modern recast, but an alternate version of the Morpheus everyone knows and loves. This means a Fishburne cameo wouldn't necessarily interfere with or contradict Abdul-Mateen's new character.
The timelines match up too. The Matrix Resurrections takes place only 20 years after The Matrix Revolutions, and an older version of Jada Pinkett Smith's Niobe has been shown in marketing promos, meaning the original Morpheus could still be alive. Unfortunately, the chances of Laurence Fishburne appearing in The Matrix Resurrections are decidedly slim. The actor's denials have felt deflating in their brutal honesty - a far cry from the Marvel "I'm definitely not in the MCU *wink*" replies we've all become overly-accustomed to. Furthermore, an explanation for Morpheus' absence can be found within the canon (at the time, at least) video game The Matrix Online, where Morpheus is believed to have died in the process of recovering Neo's corpse from Machine City.
While all indications suggest Yahya-Abdul Mateen II's modern Morpheus.
