“Much like ‘Lord of the Rings,’ keeping the stories straight is half the battle. Originally, the Wachowski’s wanted to do the second pic as a prequel, but the end of the first pic seemed to lead directly to a sequel.” (Variety in reference to shooting more than one film at the same time.)
New Line is producing The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Warner Bros: The Matrix Trilogy. Fox: The X-Men Trilogy.
All are going into the trilogy market thinking the same thing: It isn’t often when a Star Wars type situation comes around, let’s not screw this up!