UPDATED 1/30, 2:50 p.m. ET: Will Smith and Big Sean give a 2025 update to 1999 sci-fi action classic The Matrix in their "Beautiful Scars" music video.
With the song featuring OBanga, the "Beautiful Scars" video starts with an old clip of the Academy Award-winning actor explaining that he regrets turning down the role of Neo in The Matrix. The scene cuts to a scene of Smith sitting down with Sean, dressed as Morpheus, and being offered a red or blue pill to keep his life the same or turn back time and star in the film.
The video takes us into Smith and Sean's Matrix on-camera and behind the scenes, where the actor even tries out the famous bullet-dodging Matrix pose.
See the original story below.
Will Smith turned back time in a new promo co-starring Big Sean for their upcoming single "Beautiful Scars."
Last week, the Academy Award winner posted a behind-the-scenes Instagram carousel of him filming something reminiscent of The Matrix, which as it turns out, is for their upcoming collaboration.
In the video above, Smith and Sean sit down together, much in the same way Neo and Morpheus do in the iconic film. Smith is then offered a red or a blue pill, each leading to different outcomes.
"Look, you've made some awesome career choices your whole life," Sean tells Smith, before alluding to Smith turning down the lead role in The Matrix many moons ago. "There's only one you truly regret. Well... maybe two. But we're not gonna focus on that one."
"That's messed up," Smith says. Sean then offers Smith a blue pill where "everything remains the same," or a red pill where the actor can "go back and star in that movie that got away."
"The choice is yours," Sean concludes. Smith contemplates the decision, saying, "I really like my life right now."
The two have some humorous back-and-forth banter before Smith snatches both pills and chugs them down. "Wasn't even an option," a shocked Sean expresses.
With "Beautiful Scars" making its official debut on Thursday (January 30), the teaser follows Smith's Instagram post earlier this month, where he pondered how The Matrix would've turned out with him as the lead.
"In 1997, the Wachowskis offered Will Smith the role of Neo in The Matrix," the message in the reel read. "Smith turned it down. He chose Wild Wild West, believing it was a better fit for him at the time. But the question remains: What would The Matrix have been like with Will Smith as Neo?"
Starring as Neo in the hit 1999 sci-fi blockbuster was instead Keanu Reeves, while Laurence Fishburne played Morpheus. Despite receiving negative reviews from critics, the steampunk Western action-comedy Wild Wild West, which hit theaters in the same year as The Matrix, and earned $222.1 million worldwide.
While Smith would never join The Matrix franchise, his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith was cast as Niobe in 2003's The Matrix Reloaded years after auditioning for the role of Trinity, which went to Carrie-Anne Moss.