With the release of The Cabin In The Woods looming next month, I met up with Drew Goddard (the film’s director and co-writer) in Hollywood this afternoon for a lengthy chat.

While 95% of our conversation naturally centered around Cabin, we briefly touched on the status Cloverfield 2 and his screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s Robopocalypse. For those who need a refresher on the latter, it’s based on the book by Daniel H. Wilson which explores the fate of the human race following a robot uprising.

Also be sure to check out the rest of my interview with Goddard when it hits – I’ll be breaking it into two pieces. One will publish before the release of The Cabin In The Woods in the coming days/weeks. Then I’ve got a more spoiler heavy segment scheduled to hit after you’ve had a chance to see the film. He’s a smart, talented and enthusiastic guy and I think you’ll enjoy the read.

Hit the jump for the updates, which include Goddard’s thoughts on Cloverfield 2 possibly not being found-footage. You’ve got Robopocalypse coming up. How far along is that?

It’s in its process. It’s such a unique process with Steven because he has such resources and he’s able to visualize. He’s such a visual person. He’s doing tremendous work and the stuff his team has come up with is tremendous. I’m excited for people to see that finally.

Are you anywhere close to a shooting draft?

I think so. I’ve learned as a screenwriter that you never really know until it’s actually shooting. But I think the plan, last I heard, was to start in September. So up until then I’ll be tinkering.

And there’s always been talk about Cloverfield 2. Is that still happening?

I hope so. I mean, I’d like it to. Cloverfield was very much a dialogue between J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves and me. And you need those three parts. It’s just been hard because we’ve been busy. None of us wants to make a movie just for the sake of making a sequel. That’s just not interesting to us. I think we all have ideas of what we want to do, and they’re probably all different. But we need to sit down and get it together. I blame Star Trek.

As 33.3% of that creative unit, do you see it as another found footage film?

It’s a good question. I don’t know. If you’d asked me a year ago I would have said absolutely because I thought that was inherent to it. The thing about Cloverfield that was exciting was that it felt different, and we’d need to find whatever that is. We’d make it feel fresh and new, and if you asked each of us how we were going to do it we’d each have a different answer.

Robopocalypse is scheduled for release on July 13, 2013. Cabin In The Woods hits much sooner on April 13th of this year.