THE stars of The Matrix are coming to South Australia for two new movies funded this week by the Film Financing Corporation.

The films, worth a combined total of $6 million, will be shot here mid-year.

The Last Ride is a $4 million road movie starring Hugo Weaving - Agent Smith in The Matrix - as a violent father on the run from the law with his young son. It's the feature debut of Glendyn Ivin, whose short film Crackerbag won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2003. While the novel upon which the The Last Ride is based was set in Broken Hill, Ivin said a visit to the Flinders Ranges last month courtesy of the SA Film Corp had completely changed his mind.

"My jaw was on the ground, I'd never seen places like it," he said.

Ivin said he intended to cast a young male actor from the Port Augusta region in the lead role.

The other new FFC funded film is Coffin Rock, starring Robert Taylor who played Agent Jones in The Matrix. The $2 million thriller is about a childless couple whose life is disturbed by the arrival of a psychopathic stranger. The film will be directed by 2007 Tropfest finalist Rupert Glasson and produced by David Lightfoot (Wolf Creek, Rogue).

The film will probably be shot at Thompson Beach, just north of Adelaide, but Cape Jaffa in the South-East and the Yorke Peninsula are also possibilities.

The SA Film Corporation contributed about $500,000 to the two projects.