Why go to the cinema? ‘Shared reality’ experience makes viewers feel they’re in the movie

Pick a cocktail – blue or red, of course – sit back and watch and hear The Matrix unspool around and above you. This is cinema reinvented

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Shared-reality screenings of The Matrix are taking place on large dome screens in Los Angeles and Dallas for an “immersive and more experiential” viewing experience, designed to bring film fans back to cinemas. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:15pm, 5 Jun 2025

In a Los Angeles cinema, a trench-coat-wearing Neo bends backwards to dodge bullets that spiral over the viewer’s head, as the sound of gunfire erupts from everywhere.

This new immersive experience is designed to be a red-pill moment that will get film fans off their sofas at a time when the movie industry is desperate to bring back audiences.

Cosm, which has venues in Los Angeles and Dallas in the United States, is launching its dome-style screen and 3D sets in June with a “shared reality” version of The Matrix, the cult 1999 film starring Keanu Reeves as a man who suddenly learns his world is a fiction.

“We believe the future will be more immersive and more experiential,” said Cosm president Jeb Terry at a recent preview screening.

Neo (Keanu Reeves) appears on screen with an extended display of the power plant towers during the first “shared reality” screening of the movie The Matrix on an immersive dome screen inside Cosm Los Angeles. Photo: AFP

“It’s trying to create an additive, a new experience, ideally non-cannibalistic, so that the industry can continue to thrive across all formats.”