If all goes according to plan, the Matrix franchise will return to cinemas in 2021. In fact, Matrix 4 will be released on the big screen on December 22, 2021. Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss reprise their roles as Neo and Trinity in this new film. We’ve been able to find a lot of images from the shoot with the two leads, and we’ve seen Keanu Reeves with a beard and long hair.

While out and about in Germany, where The Matrix 4 is presently being filmed, eagle-eyed photographers (via People) caught Reeves rocking his new hairstyle.

Keanu was spotted walking into the hotel where he sleeps throughout the week for filming, his stuff in two bags, and running his hands over his freshly shaven head.

Although it may appear insignificant to some fans, Keanu’s new look improves the film far more than you may imagine. Not only that, but it’s certainly a welcome comeback. I mean, if he retained his long hair and beard in the forthcoming film, I’m fairly sure we’d all be reminded of John Wick, right? We don’t want that to happen. Meanwhile, The Matrix franchise’s comeback has been long delayed, and I’m beyond excited to see it all unfold once more. However, we still know very little about the project as it stands, so I guess we’ll simply have to wait a little longer to find out.

Keanu kissed Alexandra goodbye as she dropped him off at his hotel (Picture: SplashNews.com)

Although director Lana Wachowski has stated that this new episode would not be a prequel, the actor in the first episode simply had a shaved head. As a result, we may speculate about where this new picture fits within the story today. In this fourth installment, Morpheus will also be younger. Is there going to be time travel? We’ll have to wait and see what happens.

This new look also appears to strongly imply that Neo will be unplugged from the Matrix and reawaken in the real world, similar to what we saw in the previous film, though how that would work given that the character is, well, dead following the events of The Matrix Revolutions remains to be seen.

After filming for The Matrix 4 concludes, a fifth Matrix film is allegedly in the works.

Along with Lana, Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell co-wrote the Matrix 4 script.

Nobody knows much about The Matrix 4 right now, save that it’ll be an “inspiring love story” with Carrie Anne Moss reprising her role as Trinity (who died at the conclusion of The Matrix Revolutions), so it’ll be fascinating to see how it connects to the prior films.