Where to watch The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Trivia & production notes

• The Burly Brawl sequence, featuring Neo fighting 100 Agent Smiths, took 27 days to film and cost $40 million, making it one of the most expensive action scenes ever produced.
• A 1.5-mile freeway was constructed on the runways of a decommissioned Naval Air Station in Alameda, California specifically for the freeway chase scenes.
• General Motors donated over 300 cars that were completely destroyed during filming of the freeway chase sequence.
• Approximately 97% of the materials from the film's sets were recycled after production, with tons of wood being sent to Mexico to build low-income housing.
• Filming took place simultaneously on The Matrix Reloaded, its sequel Revolutions, and live-action footage for the Enter the Matrix video game from March 2001 to August 2002.
• The technology used for the original Matrix's bullet time proved insufficient for the Burly Brawl, so visual effects supervisor John Gaeta pioneered a virtual camera system that could digitally create and manipulate characters and environments.
• ESC Entertainment developed "Universal Capture," a process that digitally sampled facial details and expressions from actors Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving at high resolution.
• Don Davis, who scored the original Matrix, returned to compose Reloaded and collaborated with Juno Reactor on action sequences, combining Davis's unused "Multiple Replication" with Juno Reactor material for the Burly Brawl track.
• The collaboration "Mona Lisa Overdrive" takes its title from William Gibson's cyberpunk novel, which was a major influence on the Wachowskis.
• The producers chose to film at Alameda instead of Akron, Ohio because resetting hundreds of cars for multiple takes would have been too time-consuming.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Matrix Reloaded, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.