Yeah, the list of people who turned down being Neo is pretty sad, sometimes. I think Val Kilmer (who was on the list) would have been great - he turned down roles as Neo and Morpheus. Sadly, Sean Connery turned down both the Matrix AND Lord of the Rings. I happen to think Sean Connery would have made a great hobbit.
Russel Crowe as Morpheus probably would have fucked the whole thing up. Samuel L. Jackson as Morpheus would have been pretty interesting. Gary Oldman as Morpheus would have been wild, too, I imagine.
I think the one that breaks my heart the most is Jean Reno turning down the role of Agent Smith so he could do Godzilla.
Maybe parallel universes exist where these people were in the Matrix and took different turns down the rabbit hole.
Man, The Matrix was so fun. Too bad they crapped out those other two movies and did them so poorly. And they waited so long to make them that Trinity looked like a Skeksi in the last one.
I remember seeing this trailer in the theaters and getting a sci-fi nerd boner for it. I can't believe that was 8 years ago.
One thing I never got about this movie is why the machines couldn't just build nuclear plants, coal plants or get solar from space. You'd think that would work better than a few billion human-potato clocks.
My parents went to go see this in the theater and they said they fell asleep during it. I don't know if that reflects poorly on the movie for being boring or if it reflects poorly on my parents for being unable to stay awake for more than 2 hours.