‘Matrix 5’ in the works with Goddard taking over
Warner Bros. is taking another trip into the Matrix, but this time it will be with a new writer and director.
The studio announced Wednesday that a fifth Matrix movie is in the works with Drew Goddard (who created Netflix’s Marvel show Daredevil, helmed Cloverfield and wrote The Martian ) set to write and direct.
Lana Wachowski, who shot the last instalment, 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections, and helped create the series with sibling Lilly in 1999, will stay on as executive producer.
It’s not known if Keanu Reeves and Carrie-anne Moss, who have starred in all of the previous movies as Neo and Trinity, will return. Plot details are under wraps, but Warner Bros. Motion Pictures president of production Jesse Ehrman tells Variety that the new entry will extend the fantasy storyline that has continued across four films.
“Drew came to Warner Bros. with a new idea that we all believe would be an incredible way to continue the Matrix world, by both honouring what Lana and Lilly began over 25 years ago and offering a unique perspective based on his own love of the series and characters,” Ehrman said in a statement. “The entire team at Warner Bros. Discovery is thrilled for Drew to be making this new Matrix film, adding his vision to the cinematic canon the Wachowskis’ spent a quarter of a century building here at the studio.”
“It is not hyperbole to say
The Matrix films changed both cinema and my life,” Goddard added in a statement. “Lana and Lilly’s exquisite artistry inspires me on a daily basis, and I am beyond grateful for the chance to tell stories in their world.”
The Matrix , which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, was groundbreaking upon its release thanks to its existential plotline about humans living out their lives in a digital simulation and a distinct visual style. It spawned three sequels, 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, and 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections.
Reeves’ role as Neo, a messianic figure who learns that humankind is being kept in a dream state to fuel hungry machines, turned him into a pop culture superstar, leading to video game spinoffs, comic books and reams of pages in philosophy textbooks.
After an 18-year layaway, Reeves returned as Neo alongside Moss’ Trinity in the fourth instalment to the science-fiction series, which has brought in over $1.7 billion at the worldwide box office. But the entry, which was co-written and directed by Lana, was a box office disappointment, earning a paltry $159 million worldwide against a $190 million budget.
Resurrections revived Neo and and Trinity along with a handful of key characters (including Morpheus, who was played by Yahya Abdulmateen II, and an updated Agent Smith portrayed by Jonathan Groff) in a storyline that followed Jessica Henwick as a new cyber warrior.
In a 2021 interview with
Postmedia, the Torontoraised actor said it was “extraordinary” to watch the franchise become embraced in the years after its initial release.
“I knew when I first met with the Wachowskis their vision was a very ambitious work of art and exciting and it proved so filming it and seeing it for the first time,” Reeves reflected. “Really, watching it catch on, first with the bullet-time shot where Neo dodges the bullets and the camera movements, and then as it started to evolve into questions about the Matrix and red pill, blue pill and choices, whether to question your reality and whether to question systems of control and what are we as a species — are we a virus as Mr. Smith said? Are we something else? It was cool to see it be embraced. Now to see it generationally embraced is extraordinary.”
Reeves also said the films had stood the test of time because they forced audiences to ask questions about how they rely on technology in their own lives.
“I think of the Matrix films as a kind of tool. Something you can use to view the world. I think the films can speak more to how our world has changed, in our interactions with technology and social media and all of our computer-generated interactions,” he said. “So I think ( Resurrections ) has something to offer about our present world and a way to maybe consider our future, and give us tools to think about who we are, where we are and what we’re doing personally and collectively.”