Warner Bros. has officially confirmed that the fifth instalment of Keanu Reeves’s science fiction-thriller Matrix is in the works, with The Martian screenwriter Drew Goddard as the director this time.

Matrix 5 will mark the first film in the franchise which will not have Lana or Lilly Wachowski as the directors. Lana, who has directed the Matrix movies over the years, will serve as the executive producer for the film.

Plot and cast details have been kept under wraps. It is not clear whether Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss will reprise their roles as Neo and Trinity, respectively, or if Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Neil Patrick Harris, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jonathan Groff, who recently joined the franchise, will return.

Goddard was nominated for an Oscar in the year 2016 for writing the screenplay of the sci-fi movie The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. He is known for his screenplay in films like World War Z and Cloverfield. The filmmaker, who began his career by writing episodes for TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Lost, has also served as a writer-director for Bad Times at the El Royale and The Cabin in the Woods.

The Matrix franchise, created by the Wachowski siblings, follows protagonist Neo as he discovers the truth about humanity's enslavement in a simulated reality and joins a group of rebels to fight against advanced technologies. Beginning with the iconic 1999 film The Matrix, the franchise has had three sequels — 2003’s The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions and 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections. Several animated shorts, comic books and video games have been released over the years.

The first film in the franchise grossed over USD 463 million worldwide, emerging as one of the highest-grossing films of 1999. However, the fourth film, The Matrix Resurrections, which came out in 2021 after an 18-year-long gap, was a massive box office disappointment, collecting USD 159 million worldwide while having a production budget of USD 190 million.