The Matrix 5 Is Still Happening, Drew Goddard Says — But Will Keanu Reeves’ Neo Return?

In April 2024, Warner Bros. surprised sci-fi fans with the announcement of a 5th Matrix film. An even bigger surprise is that the Wachowskis will hand over the red pill to Drew Goddard (director of The Cabin in the Woods and Bad Times at the El Royale and writer of Cloverfield, The Martian and Project Hail Mary). Now, after two years of silence (which caused many to believe the project was in development limbo), the filmmaker has finally given an update on The Matrix 5.

Speaking to ScreenRant, the director confirmed the sequel to The Matrix Resurrectionsis “still in the works.” He added, “I’m in my writing cave writing. I don’t know how long I’ll be in that writing cave, but whenever I come out, I’ll have news to share.”

Unfortunately, he didn’t give an update on when, why, how, who or what The Matrix 5 will actually involve. For many fans of the franchise, however, the story of Neo and Trinity and their journey has completed. It’s time for something fresh and new inside the world first created by the Wachowskis in 1999.

The Matrix Franchise Timeline: From 1999 Sci-Fi Masterpiece to Box Office Misfires

The Matrix franchise has a rather mixed history in terms of its commercial success and popularity. 1999’s The Matrix continues to be regarded as an all-time sci-fi and action classic, while The Animatrix is also a popular anime anthology that builds out different corners of The Matrix universe.

By the same token, 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions each have a polarizing, at best, reputation, with the latter the subject of particularly strong derision by many who felt it to be a lacklustre conclusion to the original Matrix trilogy. 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections attempted to bring the franchise back for modern audiences, only to fall flat at the box office and receive another mixed response, but even starring in a box office bomb is hardly enough to keep The One down for the count.

News has broken that Warner Bros. has given the go-ahead for The Matrix 5 (via THR), with Drew Goddard on hand to write and direct and original Matrix co-creator Lana Wachowski to executive produce. While the announcement of The Matrix 5 has been quite the unexpected surprise, it also shouldn’t necessarily be taken cynically either. However, one story point that The Matrix 5 should use as its baseline is keeping Neo and Trinity out of their story, owing to the fact that their journey clearly ended in The Matrix Resurrections.

Why Neo and Trinity’s Story Should End After The Matrix Resurrections

The Matrix 5 has been given the green light, but Neo and Trinity don’t need to be part of the franchise’s return.

More so than any other chapter of The Matrix franchise, The Matrix Resurrections is a love story of Neo and Trinity being reunited after their heroic deaths 60 years earlier. Moreover, Resurrections brings Trinity up to Neo’s power level as The One, with the pair flying into the sky to redesign the Matrix in Resurrections’ final scene.

Without a human rebellion against machines to fight in and with Neo and Trinity having complete command over the Matrix itself now, it’s hard to argue that there’s anywhere The Matrix 5 can take them. Of course, that leaves The Matrix 5 in need of a new protagonist, and Resurrections might have coyly hinted at the best option for that.

What The Matrix 5 Should Really Be About: A Bold New Direction for the Franchise

In Resurrections, it is revealed that some machines chose to defect to the side of the human resistance after the end of the war between Zion and the machines, and this is an idea that The Matrix 5 can and should explore in more depth. In fact, The Matrix 5 can take it and the whole concept of the series even further by making its protagonist a human-machine hybrid and one created by one of the machines.

With human beings, as Morpheus puts it in The Matrix, “grown” by the machines in order to harvest their energy, The Matrix 5 could build upon this idea outside of the Matrix with a machine character essentially turning the tables on the concept of A.I. (and, indeed, the ongoing real-life A.I. debate), giving life to a cybernetic human in the real world.

In doing so, The Matrix 5 could tackle the existentialist foundation of The Matrix series from a whole new angle, centring on a protagonist who is equal parts human and machine in a world where both sides played their part in the world’s downfall and who must decide which side of the divide they favour.

To that point, considering what The Animatrix reveals about how the war of man and machine began, humanity wouldn’t necessarily be the side a human-machine hybrid would find the most immediate kinship with, which could really enable The Matrix 5 to dive into just how grey the war between man and machine really is in The Matrix universe.

The tale of a once-popular franchise or IP catching lightning in a bottle again is the kind of redemption story nerds live for, and if Drew Goddard’s take on The Matrix can re-invigorate the franchise to its 1999 heights, surely any franchise or IP comeback story is possible. Even still, Neo and Trinity have already completed their respective arcs in The Matrix Resurrections – it’s best to leave them be as they sail off into the sky together and bring in a new protagonist to Re-Enter The Matrix.

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