Although he's one of the most influential martial arts actors in the world, Jet Li wasn't a part of 'The Matrix' franchise - which took huge inspiration from Hong Kong and Asian martial arts movies.
Jet Li was originally supposed to play Seraph, the bodyguard of Oracle, in 'The Matrix Reloaded' and 'The Matrix Revolutions', and explained in a recent interview with Hong Kong outlet HK01 that his reason for leaving the movie during production. "For six months, they took all my actions and turned them into computer data,” Li explained. "Everything was copied down, and the copyright was owned by them. The martial arts that I practiced for a lifetime became copyrighted by the Americans."
As Li told it, he spent close to a year on pre-production and actually filming before he walked away altogether, only to be replaced by Collin Chou. Oddly enough, Chou eventually starred alongside Jet Li in 'Fearless', released in 2006 to huge acclaim. Li was recently announced as part of the cast of Disney's live-action 'Mulan' adaptation, where he'll play the Emperor.
'Mulan' is set for release on March 27th, 2020.
