• Village Roadshow has agreed to pay Warner Bros. $57 million to settle their long-running Matrix: Resurrections legal dispute.
• The payout is reduced from a $125 million arbitration judgment after Village Roadshow filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
• Warner Bros. now owns 100% of The Matrix: Resurrections — Village Roadshow walks away with zero stake.
• Alcon Media Group separately purchased Village Roadshow’s derivative rights to its catalog, including Matrix franchise sequels, for $18.5 million.
• The collapse of the VR-WB partnership was a key factor in the financier’s bankruptcy filing.

The years-long legal war between Village Roadshow and Warner Bros. over The Matrix Resurrections has finally landed on a number: $57 million. The now-bankrupt production company has agreed to pay that sum to Warner Bros. to resolve its liability in the arbitration dispute — and in doing so, surrenders every last bit of its stake in the fourth Matrix film. Warner Bros. now owns the whole thing.

The settlement, reached in bankruptcy court, closes out what became one of Hollywood’s messiest studio-financier breakups in recent memory. The payment was due by Wednesday, and sources indicate the money has already landed in Warner Bros.’ account.

How a Franchise Film Blew Up a Decades-Long Partnership

To understand how things got here, you have to go back to late 2021, when Warner Bros. made the controversial call to release Matrix Resurrections simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max — a strategy the studio deployed across its entire 2021 slate during the tail end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Village Roadshow, which had been one of Hollywood’s most prolific behind-the-scenes co-financiers for decades — backing everything from the original Matrix trilogy to the Ocean’s franchise — was furious. In February 2022, the company sued Warner Bros. in California state court, alleging breach of contract over the day-and-date release decision.

Village Roadshow also claimed it had been deliberately frozen out of co-financing opportunities on sequels and remakes tied to franchises it shared rights to with the studio — including the Timothée Chalamet musical Wonka, Joker, and I Am Legend. One particularly pointed example from court filings: Village Roadshow wanted in on a TV adaptation of Edge of Tomorrow, but was reportedly told the project wouldn’t proceed unless it gave up its rights. The studio ultimately dropped the show entirely.

The lawsuit didn’t last long in open court. A judge moved it to arbitration, and when the ruling came down, it went decisively against Village Roadshow. The arbitrator found that Roadshow had breached the co-ownership and distribution agreements on Matrix Resurrections — and had failed to pay its $107 million share of the co-financing deal. Village Roadshow also lost on its own claims against Warner Bros. for unfair competition, breach of contract, and breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The studio walked away with a judgment of over $107 million in damages plus $17 million in interest, totaling more than $125 million.

That ruling didn’t just end the dispute — it helped end Village Roadshow as a going concern. The company’s chief restructuring officer, Keith Maib, later wrote in court documents that the 2022 lawsuit had “irreparably decimated the working relationship” with Warner Bros. Combined with a costly and failed attempt to build an in-house content division and the poor box office performance of Resurrections itself, Village Roadshow filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2025.

The $125 Million Judgment Gets a Haircut

Once bankruptcy proceedings began, Warner Bros. filed a claim for the full $125 million. But that number was always going to shrink — that’s the nature of bankruptcy court, where creditors negotiate against the reality of what a company can actually pay. An appeals panel had also previously found that forcing Village Roadshow to purchase a 50% stake in Matrix Resurrections — in hopes of eventually receiving half of the profits — was an overreach. You can’t make a bankrupt company buy into a film it can’t afford and may never recoup.

So the math got reconfigured. The $57 million figure represents updated accounting that reflects what Village Roadshow North America can actually deliver. On Monday, Warner Bros. attorneys moved to dismiss the case in LA Superior Court after confirming the deal — filing it “without prejudice,” which technically means the Wonka-related claims could be revived. But with the payment made, the core dispute over Matrix Resurrections is done.

Warner Bros. declined to comment. Lawyers for Village Roadshow did not respond to requests for comment.

Who Owns What Now

The settlement leaves Warner Bros. as the sole owner of The Matrix Resurrections — not a partial stake, not a revenue-share arrangement. The whole film.

As for the broader Village Roadshow catalog, that’s a different story. During the bankruptcy proceedings, Warner Bros. attempted to purchase the derivative rights to several films from the Roadshow library — the rights that allow their owner to produce sequels and remakes. The studio lost that bid to Alcon Media Group, which had already purchased the full Village Roadshow Entertainment Group film library for $417.5 million in the summer of 2025. Alcon then secured the derivative rights for $18.5 million. Warner Bros. submitted a revised counter-bid of $19.5 million, but it was rejected.

Alcon’s acquisition includes derivative rights to the broader Matrix franchise, as well as titles like the 1998 fantasy film Practical Magic — which starred Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock and is getting a sequel distributed by Warner Bros. this September. Alcon co-CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson said the company looks “forward to working collaboratively with Warner Bros., as we have for over a quarter-century, to partner in the exploitation of the derivative rights to these many great films across multiple platforms.”

So the Matrix universe, despite everything, isn’t going anywhere. The IP that started it all — and the legal battle that followed — has simply changed hands and moved on. As Agent Smith put it in Resurrections: “That’s the thing about stories… they never really end, do they?”

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• Warner Bros. has released the first red-band trailer and poster for Evil Dead Burn, the sixth film in Sam Raimi’s franchise
• The film follows a grieving widow whose family reunion turns deadly when the Deadites are unleashed
• Directed by Sébastien Vaniček (Infested), the film stars Souheila Yacoub, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, and Tandi Wright
• Evil Dead Burn hits theaters July 10, 2026, with a seventh installment, Evil Dead Wrath, already in development

If you’ve been waiting for a horror trailer to genuinely disturb you this summer, your wait is over. Warner Bros. has dropped the first red-band trailer for Evil Dead Burn, and it is exactly as brutal as that title suggests — missing fingers, a car headrest embedded through a Deadite’s skull, a zombie drinking burning candle wax, and a very graphic reminder to always load your dishwasher with the knives pointing down. You’ve been warned.

The official tagline says it all: “Family is the root of all evil.” The film follows a woman who, after losing her husband, seeks comfort with her in-laws at their secluded family home. One by one, they’re transformed into Deadites — and as the synopsis puts it, “she comes to discover that the vows she took in life live on… even in death.” It’s a clever, emotionally grounded hook for what is clearly going to be an absolute bloodbath.

Evil Dead Burn is directed by Sébastien Vaniček, the French filmmaker who announced himself to horror audiences with the creepy-crawly spider thriller Infested (also known as Vermin). It’s a very Evil Dead way of doing business — Raimi and his partners have a long history of handing the keys to hungry first-time feature directors. Fede Álvarez got the call after his short film impressed the franchise’s rights holders. Lee Cronin earned his shot on the strength of The Hole in the Ground. Now it’s Vaniček’s turn, and based on this trailer, he’s pulling absolutely no punches.

A Franchise That Refuses to Slow Down

Sam Raimi launched this whole nightmare 45 years ago with the original The Evil Dead in 1981 — five friends, a cabin in the woods, and the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis unleashing hell. Evil Dead II followed in 1987, Army of Darkness in 1992, and Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams eventually got his own TV run with Ash vs. Evil Dead on Starz, which ran for three seasons. Then, in a genuinely smart move, the franchise pivoted to standalone anthology-style films — no Ash, no cabin, just the Deadites dropped into new settings and new nightmares.

That bet paid off. Evil Dead Rise, Lee Cronin’s 2023 high-rise apartment horror, grossed $147 million worldwide on a budget well under $20 million. It proved that audiences didn’t need Ash to show up — they just needed the Necronomicon and something they care about to be destroyed.

Evil Dead Burn is the third standalone entry and the sixth film in the franchise overall. Vaniček co-wrote the screenplay with Florent Bernard and has said he intended to bring a French sensibility to the material. Raimi and Rob Tapert produce under the Ghost House Pictures banner, with Bruce Campbell, Cronin, Romel Adam, and Jose Canas on board as executive producers. The film is co-financed by New Line Cinema and Sony Pictures, with Sony handling international distribution through Columbia Pictures.

Who’s in the Cast

Leading the film is Souheila Yacoub, the Swiss actress — and former rhythmic gymnast and Miss Suisse Romande — who appeared in Dune: Part Two. She’s joined by Hunter Doohan, best known as Wednesday Addams’ love interest Tyler in Wednesday and more recently from Your Honor and Daredevil: Born Again; Luciane Buchanan from The Night Agent; and Tandi Wright, who appeared in Ti West’s Pearl. Errol Shand, George Pullar, Maude Davey, and Greta Van Den Brink round out the cast — all presumably offering the Deadites plenty to work with.

Behind the camera, Vaniček is joined by director of photography Philip Lozano, production designer Nick Connor, editor Maxime Caro, and costume designer Sarah Voon.

And the franchise isn’t stopping here. Evil Dead Wrath, written and directed by Francis Galluppi (The Last Stop in Yuma County), is already in development, with a 2028 target. An animated series follow-up to Ash vs. Evil Dead is also in the works. Raimi and Campbell made clear after Evil Dead Rise that they wanted a new entry every two to three years — and so far, they’re delivering.

Evil Dead Burn opens in theaters on July 10, 2026.

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