I have a notebook from 1992 with my extensive notes for an updated special-effects-laden treatment of The Mummy.
I had The Matrix too. Or at least a story so similar that it would seem like a Matrix ripoff if I tried publishing it now. Kid grows up in a world where magic suddenly started working about a century ago, although most people’s memory is fuzzy about exactly when. No one really cares why or when it happened, since they’re just happy it did. Anyone can do just about anything if they just imagine it. Bu this kid is real curious and puts his mind an magic toward finding out how it happened… long story short, humankind invented the Matrix, and voluntarily put themselves in it since it was better than real life. (I didn’t call it the matrix, but now I can’t help it.)
But then they forgot that they could leave. So this kid, who is the first to ever leave has the arduous task of proving to everyone that this happened, that life is better in reality, and that they can leave. “and now for the wry twist…” somehow he finds out that he never actually did leave. Since the matrix lets you do whatever you can imagine, when he thought he’d escaped, he was still in the matrix, just in an imagined “real world.”
And that’s as far as I got when the movie came out and I abandoned it.