Lilly Wachowski is still trying hard to get “The Hunted,” a new film about transphobia, off the ground. It’s a film co-written with Wachowski’s partner, Mickey Ray Mahoney, and an indictment of the “current climate,” as Wachowski now tells KCRW’s The Business.
“It’s a response what is happening in the world for trans people,” Wachowski says, calling the script a “cathartic receptacle” for “anger and rage and frustration.”
“The Hunted” is set in a dystopian America where trans people are brutalized and erased to the margins of society. When a heinous crime sets off a chain reaction of mutual care and resistance within a trans community, two trans women search for the perpetrator that leads to the highest reaches of government.
Now, here’s the problem: nobody wants to finance the damn thing. Wachowski says people like the script, but studios are too scared of a predominantly trans cast.
People like it, but they really don’t want to make it because it’s wall-to-wall trans cast.
The film would cost around $10M to make, which has proved difficult to raise in the current climate. For now, Wachowski will bring “The Hunted” to the stage with a live table read at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles.
The actual film is being developed via Wachowski’s Anarchists United, with Natasha Lyonne producing. The project would also mark a return to feature filmmaking for Wachowski, whose last feature was “Jupiter Ascending” in 2015.
The Wachowskis had their breakout with “The Matrix,” which captured the zeitgeist like few sci-fi films before or after it, leading to two highly profitable—if somewhat clunky—sequels in the early 2000s.
Since then, their careers have had mixed commercial outcomes. “Speed Racer” and “Jupiter Ascending” reportedly lost over $100M each, while “Cloud Atlas” lost around $30M. Lana Wachowski went on to direct 2021’s “The Matrix Resurrections,” which also reportedly underperformed financially. No projects have been announced for Lana since then.
That’s nearly $350M in reported losses across just four films. From a studio perspective, that kind of track record makes it difficult to secure funding for similarly large, high-risk passion projects. With that said, Lilly only wants $10M to make “The Hunted”—and the only apparent obstacle seems to be its “wall-to-wall trans cast.” Maybe Warner Bros. can throw in some Ellison cash and get this thing funded before Paramount takes over.
It’s been seven years since Alma Har’el’s feature debut, “Honey Boy,” which was written by and starred Shia LaBeouf — she is now set to direct her next film, with a very talented cast.