We’re getting another installment of “The Matrix” franchise, and it’s coming from a unique place, writer/director Drew Goddard. The news announced earlier in the week via trades like The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Village Roadshow and Warner Bros. are reuniting on a fifth untitled “Matrix” movie with Lana Wachowski (the co-director of the original trilogy and helmer of “The Matrix Resurrections”) returning to produce.

Goddard is said to have impressed everyone with a “new idea” and is set to both write and direct “Matrix 5.” However, it’s unclear if any of the original cast or new additions seen in “The Matrix Resurrections” will be part of this new movie. The filmmaker is maybe best known for his satirical horror comedy “Cabin In The Woods” and also earned a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination for his work on Ridley Scott’s sci-fi dramedy “The Martian.”

Again, without knowing the direction or plan for this next installment, it’s really hard to know where they’ll be going. One hypothetical idea could be a prequel covering Humanity’s War With Machines that led to the creation of The Matrix after humanity eventually lost that global war. This world-shattering event was actually covered in “The Animatrix” shorts and didn’t exactly have a narrative structure allowing further exploration within that story; if Warners wanted to, that is. Then again, are audiences going to be thrilled about a prequel film that wouldn’t leave room for a return of Keanu Reeves‘ Neo or Carrie-Anne Moss‘ Trinity? That feels doubtful.

We’ve known for a while that Goddard has been trying to get his mitts on a Marvel Comics project after having attempted to direct episodes of the “Daredevil” series at Netflix, Sony’s “Amazing Spider-Man 2” spinoff movie “The Sinister Six,” an “X-Force” movie with Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool (before the merger with Disney sort of threw it on the scrap heap), and has been rumored for months to be in the running to helm “Spider-Man 4” for Marvel Studios. It certainly feels like he’s been trying his darnedest to make an IP installment, but it just hasn’t been working out, given his bad luck.

Village Roadshow and Warners had been previously feuding, but it looks like between “Matrix 5,” the upcoming release of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” and that “Edge of Tomorrow” sequel looking to finally get made sooner rather than later, the two are starting to smooth things out behind the scenes as they continue to make blockbuster projects together.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER