Lilly Wachowski continues to attack Hollywood for not being able to get anything off the ground. In an interview with Variety, Wachowski says studios like the pitches, but are too scared to finance predominantly queer and trans stories.
I’ve pitched a lot of wonderful, cool queer stories and trans stories, and Hollywood didn’t want any of it.
Then Lily starts mentions the two big projects that have fallen apart, one of them described as “Star Wars with lesbians in space.”
There was this TV show based on this comic book 'Cosmoknights' that I was going to direct [..] It’s 'Star Wars' with lesbians in space. Amy Poehler was producing it, and we pitched it all around town […] We had this cool adaptation of 'Manhunt' by Gretchen Felker-Martin, which was a bestseller on all these top ten lists, and couldn’t get that going.
Of course, this means that Wachowski, who hasn’t directed a film since 2015’s “Jupiter Ascending,” has been out of work for many years. The trans/queer pitches started in 2022, and it’s only been rejections since.
This is around 2022, and now it’s four years later and I haven’t made a thing. I cannot find a studio that will do any of it.
We do know, according to Lily, “Manhunt,” an action movie tackling transphobia, would have cost around $10M to make, which has proved impossible to raise.
In that same interview, Lily makes no friends over at Warner Bros. blasting the upcoming reboot: “if you support ‘Harry Potter,’ you’re supporting trans genocide.” This comes only a few weeks after Lily’s scathing comments towards David Ellison. So don’t expect Paramount or Warner Bros. to greenlight any of those projects either.
If you remember, back in June, Lily told IndieWire, that, despite strong efforts, none of these projects have been able to get a greenlit because “fascism” is currently thriving.
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 bombed. No projects have been announced for Lana since then.
Paul Schrader has never been one to hold back, and in a new conversation, he confirms that his latest film, “The Basics of Philosophy,” was turned away by Telluride, Toronto and New York.