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> WB owned the franchise and were going to make a sequel with or without them

This is 100% what was going to happen. The film basically tells you this in its meta-commentary.

> But I suppose they were made an offer they couldn't refuse.

"I have never seen [Jaws: The Revenge], but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Caine#Personal_life

To me Matrix 4 was sort of an admission by The Wachowskis that while they could create at least one 'perfect' cyberpunk movie, they couldn't really figure out what cyberpunk should lead to - what a good subversion of the genre should look like. It feels like they tried but kind of gave up half way there. Subverting a franchise that people already have such strong and established connection to is probably almost impossible.

> I'm sure the franchise will get a "hard" reboot at some point.

As the Matrix itself did, according to the Architect.