The Wachowskis

1 = 240pxThe Wachowskis

The Wachowskis

Lilly (left) and Lana Wachowski at the Fantastic Fest screening of Cloud Atlas in September 2012
Known for	The Matrix series V for Vendetta Speed Racer Cloud Atlas Jupiter Ascending Sense8

Lana Wachowski
Born	Laurence Wachowski (1965-06-21) June 21, 1965 Chicago, Illinois, United States
Other names	Larry Wachowski (before 2010)
Occupation(s)	Film and TV director, screenwriter, and producer, comic book writer and publisher
Years active	1994–present
Spouses	Thea Bloom ​ ​ (m. 1993; div. 2002)​ Karin Winslow ​ (m. 2009)​

Lilly Wachowski
Born	Andrew Paul Wachowski (1967-12-29) December 29, 1967 Chicago, Illinois, United States
Other names	Andy Wachowski (before 2016)
Occupation(s)	Film and TV director, screenwriter, and producer, comic book writer and publisher
Years active	1994–present
Spouse	Alisa Blasingame ​ (m. 1991)​

Lana Wachowski (formerly Laurence "Larry" Wachowski, born June 21, 1965) and Lilly Wachowski (formerly Andrew Paul "Andy" Wachowski, born December 29, 1967) are American film directors, screenwriters, and producers. They are siblings, and are both trans women. Known together professionally as The Wachowskis and formerly as The Wachowski Brothers, the pair made their directing debut in 1996 with Bound, and reached fame with their second film The Matrix (1999), a major box office success for which they won the Saturn Award for Best Director. They wrote and directed its two sequels: The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (both in 2003), and were deeply involved in the writing and production of other works in the franchise.

Following the commercial success of The Matrix series, they wrote and produced the 2006 film V for Vendetta (an adaptation of the comic of the same name by Alan Moore), and in 2008 released the film Speed Racer, which was a live-action adaptation of the Japanese anime series of the same name. Their next film, Cloud Atlas, based on the novel of the same name by David Mitchell and co-written and co-directed by Tom Tykwer, was released in 2012. Their film Jupiter Ascending and the Netflix series Sense8 both debuted in 2015.

The siblings have worked as a writing and directing unit throughout their professional film careers from Bound through the first season of Sense8. Following her gender transition, Lilly Wachowski took a break from active writing and directing; Lana worked on the second season of Sense8 without her.

Early life

Lana was born Laurence Wachowski in Chicago in 1965; Lilly was born Andrew Paul Wachowski two and a half years later, in 1967. Their mother Lynne (née Luckinbill) was a nurse and painter. Their father Ron Wachowski was a businessman of Polish descent. Their uncle is the actor and Primetime Emmy Award-winning producer Laurence Luckinbill. They have two additional sisters: Julie and Laura. Julie was credited as assistant coordinator in the Wachowskis' film Bound; she is a novelist and screenwriter.

Lana and Lilly attended Kellogg Elementary School in Chicago's Beverly area, and they graduated from Whitney Young High School, known for its performing arts and science curriculum, in 1983 and 1985 respectively, in both cases under their birth names. Former classmates recall them playing Dungeons & Dragons and working in the school’s theater and TV program.

Lana went to Bard College in New York and Lilly attended Emerson College in Boston. Both dropped out before graduating.

Career

After dropping out of college, the Wachowskis ran a house painting and construction business in Chicago while writing for Marvel Comics' Razorline imprint, namely Ectokid (created by horror novelist Clive Barker) in 1993. They also wrote the series Clive Barker's Hellraiser and Clive Barker's Nightbreed for Epic Comics.

Film

In the mid-1990s they branched out into film writing, including the script for Assassins in 1994, which was directed by Richard Donner and released in 1995. Warner Bros. bought the script and included two more pictures in the contract. Donner had their script "totally rewritten" by Brian Helgeland and the Wachowskis tried unsuccessfully to remove their names from the film. They say the experience gave them the perspective that they should become directors or "[they will] never survive as writers in this town."

Their next project was the 1996 neo-noir thriller Bound, for which they wrote the script and made their debut as directors. The film was well received for its style and craft, and was noted as one of the first mainstream films to feature a gay relationship without it being central to the plot. Taking advantage of the positive buzz, the Wachowskis asked to direct their next picture, The Matrix.

Influences

J. Michael Straczynski, who has worked with the Wachowskis on Ninja Assassin and Sense8, has said that the sisters told him they were reading his column on scriptwriting for the Writer's Digest magazine, for inspiration and pointers. Straczynski contributed to the magazine from 1981 to 1991.

In 1998, in the context of explaining how they got their start in filmmaking, the Wachowskis mentioned Roger Corman's book, How I Made A Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, and indicated, with laughter, that they liked his movies, and began by wanting to "make a low-budget horror movie." In the same interview, they expressed being flattered, after their first film, by comparisons to the Coen brothers, who had "made five, maybe six great movies…" at that time.

Speaking to Bernard Weintraub of The New York Times in April 1999, the Wachowskis mention explicitly preparing for their first Matrix production by studying the works of John Woo "and other Hong Kong filmmakers", as well as reading and rereading Homer's Odyssey, and studying the works of John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, Fritz Lang, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and Billy Wilder.

Mark Miller, writing in Wired in 2003, also listed Homer, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and philosopher Cornel West. In an interview with Gadfly in 2004 (after their first movie), the Wachowskis reiterated their influence by or enjoyment of Huston (e.g. Treasure of the Sierra Madre) and Wilder (e.g., Sunset Boulevard and Lost Weekend), and added to these the impacts of Alfred Hitchcock (e.g. Strangers on a Train and Psycho), Roman Polanski (e.g. Repulsion), and Francis Ford Coppola (the Godfather movies, and The Conversation).

Akira Kurosawa and Mamoru Oshii are influences, as is Ken Wilber.

The Matrix franchise

Main article: The Matrix franchise

They completed The Matrix, a science fiction action film, in 1999. The movie stars Keanu Reeves as Neo, a hacker recruited by a rebellion to aid them in the fight against machines who have taken over the world and placed humanity inside a simulated reality called "the Matrix". Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano also star. The movie was a critical and commercial hit for Warner Bros. It won four Academy Awards, including for "Best Visual Effects" for popularizing the bullet time visual effect. The Matrix came to be a major influence for action movies and has appeared in several "greatest science fiction films" lists. In 2012, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant."

After its success, the Wachowskis directed two sequels back-to-back, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, both released in 2003. The Matrix Reloaded received positive critical reception, although not on the level of the original. It became a major box office hit, retaining the spot of the highest-grossing R-rated film for over a decade (until 2016's Deadpool). The Matrix Revolutions received a mixed to negative critical reception and performed lukewarmly in the box office. While it was profitable it made slightly less money than the original film.

During production of the first film, the Wachowskis and Spencer Lamm, who ran the film's official website, developed comics based on the setting of the film, which were published free of charge on the website. These and a few short stories were released in three series from 1999 to 2003, with several of them (along with new material) collected in two print volumes in 2003 and 2004. The Wachowskis themselves contributed "Bits and Pieces", a prequel to the movie that explains the origins of the Matrix, featuring illustrations by Geof Darrow, the movie's conceptual designer. Other writers and artists that contributed to the series include Neil Gaiman, Dave Gibbons, Paul Chadwick, Ted McKeever, Poppy Z. Brite, and Steve Skroce.

Later work

The Wachowskis' next feature film was V for Vendetta, an adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel of the same name, starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving. The Wachowskis wrote and produced the film with Matrix producer Joel Silver, who had previously purchased the film rights to the novel. The Wachowskis offered the film to James McTeigue, the first assistant director of The Matrix trilogy, as his directorial debut. Moore did not participate in the production, as he was disappointed by previous Hollywood adaptations of his work, and disagreed with differences between the screenplay and his novel. Following a statement to the press by Silver that Moore was supposedly excited to learn more about the movie, Moore demanded from Silver to retract it and when the latter didn't comply Moore had his name removed from the credits. The film's controversial storyline and themes have been both criticized and praised by sociopolitical groups. It was released in 2006 and was well received critically; it was a box office success but did not rank on the scale of The Matrix films. The film popularized the image of the Guy Fawkes mask, originally designed by illustrator David Lloyd for the graphic novel, which was adopted as a symbol by the online hacktivist group Anonymous two years later.

In 2006, Silver had the Wachowskis and McTeigue hired to revamp The Invasion for Warner Bros. The studio was disappointed in the film as produced by director Oliver Hirschbiegel and hired the Wachowskis to rewrite a portion of the script and add new action scenes, which McTeigue directed. The film, the fourth adaptation of the novel The Body Snatchers, was released in 2007 and was not a critical or box office success. The Wachowskis and McTeigue are not credited on the film.

The Wachowskis returned to directing with Speed Racer (2008) which starred Emile Hirsch. The film, which was again produced by Silver, was an adaptation of a 1960s Japanese manga series originally called Mach GoGoGo, which had previously been adapted as an anime TV series in 1967. The Wachowskis were attracted to the project because the series was the first anime they had watched and they wanted to make a family friendly film for their nieces and nephews to enjoy. In an effort to simulate the look of anime in live action the Wachowskis had cinematographer David Tattersall shoot the movie digitally on a digital backlot with the intention of adding extensive visual effects in post-production. The movie was considered a critical and commercial disappointment. While its special effects were noted as outstanding, the storyline is considered lacking. It was nominated in the category of "Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel" for the 29th Golden Raspberry Awards. Its box office gross was $93 million compared to a production budget of $120 million. Since then, critics periodically have put the film on lists of underrated or cult films.

The Wachowskis' next film project was Ninja Assassin, a martial arts film starring Rain that was released in 2009. It was produced by the Wachowskis in their last involvement with Silver and directed by McTeigue and it was inspired by Rain's fighting scene in Speed Racer. The screenplay was written by Matthew Sand and J. Michael Straczynski, who the Wachowskis called 6 weeks before filming to ask him for a complete rewrite completed within a week, because they were dissatisfied with the earlier drafts and were running out of time. Ninja Assassin received negative reviews and performed lukewarmly in the theaters but respectably on home video.

Their next directorial outing was Cloud Atlas, which was adapted from David Mitchell's 2004 novel of the same name and starred an ensemble cast which included Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. Cloud Atlas was written and directed in collaboration with German filmmaker Tom Tykwer to whom the Wachowskis had introduced the novel several years earlier. The filmmakers failed to secure funding from a studio (save for $20 million by Warner Bros.) and was produced independently after much trouble. With a budget of over $100 million it was noted as the most expensive independent movie to that date and the first attempt at a German blockbuster. The movie opened at the 37th annual Toronto International Film Festival in September 2012 to acclaim and received a loud and lengthy standing ovation. In its general release a month later, it received polarizing reviews and eventually appeared in both "Best Film" and "Worst Film" lists. Overall reviews were mixed to positive. The film received many nominations and awards, particularly for its technical aspects, including ten nominations in the German Film Awards out of which it won five and five Saturn Award nominations out of which it won two. In contrast to Moore's aversion to the script and production of V for Vendetta, David Mitchell liked the script of Cloud Atlas, spent some time on the set (including filming a cameo) and had a positive impression about the end result. According to the Wachowskis the movie was the hardest of their films to make, the one they are the most proud of, and the one they have been told has touched people's lives the most. They believe Cloud Atlas will be the film they will be remembered for.

The Wachowskis subsequently produced and directed Jupiter Ascending, an original space opera screenplay they wrote. The film was released in 2015. It stars Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis, and features the Wachowskis' regular collaborators John Gaeta on visual effects and Kym Barrett on costumes. According to Deadline, the financial and critical failure of Jupiter Ascending caused their business relationship with Warner Bros. that began with The Matrix franchise to be terminated.

Their next project was the Netflix science fiction drama series Sense8, created and written with J. Michael Straczynski. Sense8 features an international ensemble cast and it is shot in a multitude of cities around the world. The Wachowskis directed most of the episodes of the first season with the rest being handled by McTeigue, Tykwer and their go-to visual effects supervisor on their movies, Dan Glass, on his directorial debut. The first season premiered in 2015 to generally positive reviews particularly for the scale of the production and the presentation of diverse and LGBT characters and themes, winning the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Drama Series. It has also received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music. A Christmas special was released December 23, 2016 with the remainder of the show's second season scheduled for a May 2017 release.

In June 2016, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invited the Wachowskis to join its ranks.

Style

The Wachowskis admit to a love for telling multi-part stories. "Because we grew up on comic books and the Tolkien trilogy, one of the things we're interested in is bringing serial fiction to cinema," Lana has said. Lilly says: "We think movies are fairly boring and predictable. We want to screw with audiences' expectations." In terms of themes expressed in their body of work, Lana has cited "the inexplicable nature of the universe [being] in constant dialogue with our own consciousness and our consciousness actually affect[ing] the inexplicable nature of the universe," "interconnectivity and about truth beneath the surface", "the paradox of choice and choicelessness", "transcendence ... transcending archetypal boxes, stereotypes", "race ... an important component" and "gender ... it's one of our most significant cultural subjects."

The Wachowskis cited the art of comic book artist Geof Darrow as an influence on the look of The Matrix. Also, they said that Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, and Akira were anime that inspired them, saying "in anime, one thing that they do that we tried to bring to our film was a juxtaposition of time and space in action beats."

The Wachowskis cited Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as a major influence for Cloud Atlas. They first saw the film when they were ten and seven, respectively.

Lana has most been influenced by 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Ma vie en rose, and My Neighbor Totoro. Both Wachowskis are fans of the Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Wicked City, Ninja Scroll and Fist of the North Star anime films.

None of the home video releases of their films feature any deleted scenes. Lana says that despite often having to cut scenes from their movies, they do not want to include deleted scenes in such releases, as this would suggest that their films suffer from incompleteness. They love their finished products and believe them complete. For the same reason, they have not released their films for home video with director's or extended cuts. They also avoid recording audio commentary tracks, having participated only on the track recorded for the LaserDisc of Bound. The sisters say they learned that offering an interpretation of their movies means that viewers will be less likely to express their own interpretation.

Frequent collaborators

The Wachowskis frequently hire the same basic film crew to make their movies. Lana admits they do it in part to ensure a positive environment. "It's like family. Everyone is very respectful of each other," says Lana. They used the same practice while selecting the television crew for their Netflix show, Sense8.

Some of their most notable frequent collaborators are:

Crew member	Bound	The Matrix	The Matrix Reloaded	The Matrix Revolutions	Speed Racer	Cloud Atlas	Jupiter Ascending	Sense8	Roles	Notes
Kym Barrett		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Costume designer	Also credited in Enter the Matrix.
Hugh Bateup		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Production designer, (supervising) art director
Alexander Berner						Yes	Yes		Film editor
Geof Darrow		Yes	Yes	Yes	Uncredited	Uncredited	Uncredited		Conceptual designer, conceptual artist	Also worked on Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, Jupiter Ascending. Founded Burlyman Entertainment along with the Wachowskis and Steve Skroce and worked on Shaolin Cowboy, Doc Frankenstein and The Matrix Comics.
Dane Davis	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Sound designer, supervising sound editor	Also credited in The Animatrix, Ninja Assassin and Enter the Matrix.
Don Davis	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes					Composer	Also credited in The Animatrix, Enter the Matrix and The Matrix Online.
John Gaeta		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes		Visual effects supervisor, visual effects designer	Also credited in Ninja Assassin, Enter the Matrix and The Matrix Comics.
Dan Glass			Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Visual effects supervisor, TV episode director	Directed an episode of Sense8. Also credited in V for Vendetta, Ninja Assassin and Enter the Matrix.
Michael Giacchino					Yes		Yes		Composer
Grant Hill			Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Producer, executive producer, unit production manager	Also credited in V for Vendetta, Ninja Assassin and Enter the Matrix.
James McTeigue		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes			Yes	First assistant director, second unit director, TV episode director	Also worked on The Invasion and Enter the Matrix. Also director of the Wachowski-produced V for Vendetta and Ninja Assassin.
Owen Paterson		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes				Production designer	Also credited in V for Vendetta and Enter the Matrix.
Bill Pope	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes					Director of photography	Also credited in Enter the Matrix. Pope says he hasn't been asked to work again with the Wachowskis since a fall out they had during The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
Joel Silver		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes				Producer	Also producer of Assassins, The Animatrix (executive producer), V for Vendetta, Ninja Assassin, Enter the Matrix and The Matrix Online. According to a March 2017 article by The Hollywood Reporter, Silver has a strained relationship with the Wachowskis.
Steve Skroce		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Uncredited	Uncredited	Uncredited	Storyboard artist	Also worked on Cloud Atlas, Jupiter Ascending and Sense8. Also credited in V for Vendetta and Ninja Assassin. Founded Burlyman Entertainment along with the Wachowskis and Geof Darrow and worked on Doc Frankenstein and The Matrix Comics.
Zach Staenberg	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes				Film editor	Also credited in Enter the Matrix, The Matrix: Path of Neo.
Ethan Stoller					Yes		Yes	Yes	Music consultant, music editor, composer	Also provided music for the extras in the home video releases of Speed Racer and was credited in V for Vendetta, Ninja Assassin and Google Me Love. He has known the Wachowskis since high school.
John Toll						Yes	Yes	Yes	Director of photography, executive producer
Tom Tykwer				Yes		Yes		Yes	Composer, co-writer, co-director, TV episode director
Jeremy Woodhead					Yes	Yes	Yes		Makeup, hair and prosthetics designer	Also credited in V for Vendetta and Ninja Assassin.

Cast member	Bound	The Matrix trilogy	Speed Racer	Cloud Atlas	Jupiter Ascending	Sense8	Notes
James D'Arcy				Yes	Yes
Bae Doona				Yes	Yes	Yes
Kick Gurry			Yes		Yes	Yes (Season 2)
Tuppence Middleton					Yes	Yes
Christian Oliver			Yes			Yes
Joe Pantoliano	Yes	Yes (Part 1 only)				Yes
Susan Sarandon			Yes	Yes
Hugo Weaving		Yes		Yes			Also starred in V for Vendetta, made an appearance in Enter the Matrix and was credited in The Matrix: Path of Neo for the use of clips from The Matrix films that were featuring him.

As film producers and comic book publishers

During The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Animatrix and Enter the Matrix production, the Wachowskis created EON Entertainment (not to be confused with Eon Productions), their production company to coordinate and direct all involved partners. It is also where the films were edited together, after the various FX vendors sent their finished work. EON's internal VFX team, ESC, did a number of visual effect shots for the two Matrix sequels and coordinated the other vendors. ESC was shut down in summer 2004. Anarchos Productions (credited in Cloud Atlas as Anarchos Pictures) is their production company that has been billed for all their films starting with V for Vendetta up to the first season of Sense8. In the second season and following Lilly's break from the show, Anarchos is replaced by Venus Castina Productions, a production company created by Lana Wachowski and her wife, Karin Winslow. It is named after the epithet of the Roman goddess Venus, who in this form, was supposedly associated with "the yearnings of feminine souls locked up in male bodies".

Kinowerks is their pre- and post-production and effects studio, based in the Ravenswood neighbourhood of Chicago. It has been acclaimed for its green-friendly design. Roger Ebert was invited to watch a restored print of The Godfather in the Kinowerks facilities and met the Wachowskis, but he was oblivious to the fact the studio belonged to them. The Chicago Tribune's Christopher Pirelli, the facility is very low-key: "an industrial building that appears neither old nor especially new" and "It could be an upscale dentist's office" while the "inside is rather unexpected" and has numerous mementos of past film projects.

The Wachowskis at the San Diego ComicCon in 2004.

Prior to working in the film industry, the Wachowskis wrote comic books for Marvel Comics' Razorline imprint, namely Ectokid (created by horror novelist Clive Barker) in 1993 as well as writing for Epic Comics' Clive Barker's Hellraiser and Clive Barker's Nightbreed comic series.

In 2003, they created Burlyman Entertainment and released comic books based on The Matrix as well as two original bi-monthly series:

• Shaolin Cowboy – created, written, and drawn by Geof Darrow (the Wachowskis contributed the opening dialogue to each issue)
• Doc Frankenstein – created by Geof Darrow and Steve Skroce, written by the Wachowskis, with art by Skroce.

Unrealized projects

The Wachowskis' first script was a thriller called Carnivore. It has been described as "a Corman-style, low-budget horror movie that dealt with cannibalism or, more specifically, rich people being eaten by cannibals". The writing was well received and the script made the duo noticed, although interest in making the movie was low as executives told them "This is a bad idea. I can't make this. I'm rich." Years later, on April 6, 1999, a week after The Matrix opened in American theaters, Variety reported Trimark was looking to buy the script and were in talks with George Romero to direct it with production scheduled to begin in August. In April 2001, news of the Wachowskis producing it for Lionsgate and looking for a director surfaced again, and in August 2003 a second time, with their go-to cinematographer Bill Pope rumored to be making his directorial debut with it. The film ultimately went unproduced.

Another two of their earliest scripts which were never produced were Plastic Man, based on the DC Comics superhero of the same name and Vertical Run based on the book of the same name by Joseph R. Garber.

After completing The Matrix, the Wachowskis were looking to make an animated adaptation of Frank Miller's Hard Boiled graphic novel. The comic was drawn by Geof Darrow, the conceptional designer of The Matrix and later its sequels. The project didn't move forward because Miller didn't want it to be an animated film.

In November 2000, Variety reported the Wachowskis would produce, co-create and direct second unit on a new Conan the Barbarian movie for Warner Bros. which was to be written and directed by John Milius and which could see Arnold Schwarzenegger make an appearance. The Wachowskis were planning to juggle their pre-production involvement on the movie and work on The Matrix sequels at the same time. In January 2004 it was reported that development on King Conan: Crown of Iron had stalled for years because of the Wachowskis' involvement in The Matrix sequels and now that the movies were complete they decided to abandon the project of their own volition because of the frequent clashes they had experienced with Milius concerning the tone and direction of the movie. Lana once suggested Conan the Barbarian as her favorite movie based on comics to which Lilly also responded enthusiastically.

In 2008, the Wachowskis were producing for Madhouse an animated film based on their comic book company's Shaolin Cowboy, titled Shaolin Cowboy in The Tomb of Doom. The feature is co-directed by the comic book's creator Geof Darrow and Seiji Mizushima, a Japanese director. When the American financiers backed out, the film was left half-finished and in need of $3 million. Darrow does not believe that the required amount of money to finish it will be found.

In December 2009, Arianna Huffington tweeted pictures of herself on the set of "a Wachowskis movie on Iraq from the perspective of the future". CHUD.com reported what the Wachowskis were doing was camera tests and shooting of test footage on the Red digital camera for a future movie, but not shooting the movie itself. In March 2010, Jesse Ventura said he had also shot for the project right before Huffington. Both of them were dressed as people from roughly 100 years in the future and they were asked to improvise without a script about the Iraq War. In May 2010, Deadline reported the movie was going to be a hard-R story that would begin in the future but move back to the then-current war in Iraq and center on the homosexual relationship between an American soldier and an Iraqi. The Wachowskis completed the script and were searching for funding to direct it. In July 2010, the movie was reported to have begun casting under the codename CN9 (or CN-9), and in August 2010 the full name was revealed as Cobalt Neural 9. In September 2010, Vulture posted additional details about the script and revealed the movie would be told in found footage-style from the perspective of digital archaeologists from the future. An estimated $20 million budget was reported although they were told a studio would "never, ever" finance it but perhaps the Wachowskis could do it themselves. In December 2010, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Salman Rushdie and Cornel West had also shot talking head sequences along with the previously reported involvement of Huffington and Ventura but the Wachowskis were currently looking into other movies because of troubles financing it. Later, in September 2012, Aleksandar Hemon wrote about the making of Cloud Atlas and recalled he too was one of the people the Wachowskis had invited to interview in December 2009, to help inspire the script of Cobalt Neural 9. The last update on the film was in October 2012, when the Wachowskis were asked about it and they responded they were still keen to make it, because they had invested both financially ($5 million) and emotionally into it, even if that ends up being in a different form than film.

In December 2010, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the Wachowskis were planning to direct for Warner Bros. a script of theirs called Hood, which was a modern adaptation of the Robin Hood legend. The Wachowskis were said to be reaching out to actors, including Will Smith.

Personal life

Lilly has been married to Alisa Blasingame since 1991. Lana married Thea Bloom in 1993; they divorced in 2002. Lana subsequently began dating Karin Winslow; they married in 2009. Winslow is a board member of the Chicago House and Social Service Agency.

Raised by a "hardcore atheist" father and an "ex-Catholic turned Shamanist" mother, the duo once described their religious beliefs as non-denominational. Lana is a vegetarian. During the Democratic Party presidential primaries of 2016, The Advocate posted a video message of Lana talking about why she would be supporting Bernie Sanders.

Lana's gender transition

Rumors that Lana Wachowski was transitioning spread in the early 2000s, though neither sibling spoke directly on the subject at the time. In 2003, Gothamist.com reported the possible gender reassignment. In a 2007 interview Joel Silver, the producer of numerous Wachowski films, said that the rumors concerning the gender reassignment surgery were "all untrue", saying that "they just don't do interviews, so people make things up." Crew members working on Speed Racer said similarly.

Lana completed the transition after Speed Racer's release in 2008, and by at least December 2010, trade magazines and newspapers referred to her as "Lana Wachowski" her preferred name, and to the duo as "Andy and Lana Wachowski." On some documents her name is shown as Laurenca Wachowski. In July 2012, Lana made her first public appearance after transitioning, in a video discussing the creative process behind Cloud Atlas. Lana is the first major Hollywood director to come out as transgender.

In October 2012 Lana Wachowski received the Human Rights Campaign's Visibility Award. In her acceptance speech, she revealed that once during her youth, she had considered committing suicide because of her feelings of confusion about identity. Her acceptance speech was one of the longest public appearances by either of the notoriously reclusive siblings. Lana said that, although she and her sister had not publicly commented on her transitioning during the previous decade, it was not because she was ashamed of it, nor had she kept it a secret from her family and friends. Rather, she stated, the two are generally shy about the news media and prefer to maintain their privacy. Comparing media exposure to losing one's virginity as an irreversible event that only happens once, the Wachowskis had tried to stay out of the public eye. They feared losing their privacy and the ability to go to public places without being noticed and harassed as celebrities.

Explaining her decision to appear at the HRC event, Lana said,

"there are some things we do for ourselves, but there are some things we do for others. I am here because when I was young, I wanted very badly to be a writer, I wanted to be a filmmaker, but I couldn't find anyone like me in the world and it felt like my dreams were foreclosed simply because my gender was less typical than others. If I can be that person for someone else, then the sacrifice of my private civic life may have value."

In February 2014, Lana received the Freedom Award from Equality Illinois at their annual gala in Chicago.

Lilly's gender transition

In March 2016, Lilly Wachowski also came out as a transgender woman, issuing a statement to the Windy City Times after a visit from a reporter from the Daily Mail newspaper. While on the red carpet of the 27th GLAAD Media Awards, Lilly commented she had been hiding she was transgender throughout her "whole life".

Gaming

Lana and Lilly are self-proclaimed gamers. As teens they spent their weekends in the attic playing Dungeons & Dragons. They liken the process of their playing parties to their process of filmmaking. Along with some of their friends, they wrote a 350-page role-playing game of their own, called High Adventure.

On the video game front, they had been exchanging letters with Hideo Kojima and met him during a Famitsu interview in late 1999. Metal Gear Solid was the first video game they played after finishing work on The Matrix. Candidates for an adaptation of the first Matrix movie to video game form included Kojima, Bungie and Shiny Entertainment, whose Messiah PC game impressed them. Shiny's David Perry, who ultimately had his company develop and collaborate with them on the Enter the Matrix and The Matrix: Path of Neo video games, was impressed with their familiarity with the medium; this proved helpful during development. The Wachowskis owned both a PlayStation 2 and Xbox video game console and played several games such as Splinter Cell and Halo 2. They reportedly destroyed their Xbox during a Halo deathmatch. Actor Collin Chou recounts an instance of visiting their office and finding them playing video games on the floor. Lilly is a fan of the Death Jr. PlayStation Portable game.

Asked about their feelings about turning the tightly controlled Matrix saga to the unpredictable form of an MMORPG with The Matrix Online, the duo appeared enthusiastic about the nature and possibilities of video games:

The "vagaries of an MMO where unpredictable player behavior is the rule," is the reason for doing it. Our films were never intended for a passive audience. There are enough of those kinds of films being made. We wanted our audience to have to work, to have to think, to have to actually participate in order to enjoy them. This may be because while we enjoy movies, we also spend a lot of time (as in crack-den amounts of time) gaming.

Gaming engages your mind actively whereas most genre films (the films we tend to watch) are designed to provoke as little thinking as possible. Consider why the films in which everyone knows exactly what is going to happen are the films that make the most money.

Yet the fact that The Matrix films are three of the most successful adult films in history (despite of what much of the media would have us believe), suggests that there are other people like us. Those are the people, the people who thought about it, who worked at it, who we ultimately made the trilogy for and it now makes perfect sense to us that they should inherit the storyline. For us, the idea of watching our baby evolve inside the virtual bubble-world of this new radically developing medium, which has in our opinion the potential of combining the best attributes of films and games, of synthesizing reality TV with soap opera, RPGs and Mortal Combat [sic], is fantastically exciting.

— The Wachowskis

Works

Films

Year	Title	Functioned as				Notes
		Directors	Screenwriters	Producers	Executive producers
1995	Assassins		Yes			Their script was "totally rewritten" by screenwriter Brian Helgeland. They felt the rewrite removed "all the subtext, the visual metaphors... the idea that within our world there are moral pocket universes that operate differently" to the point they chose to call it their "abortion". They tried to remove their names from the film but failed.
1996	Bound	Yes	Yes		Yes
1999	The Matrix	Yes	Yes		Yes
2001	The Matrix Revisited				Yes	Documentary
2003	The Animatrix		Yes	Yes		Direct-to-video Writing credits for "Final Flight of the Osiris"; story credits for "The Second Renaissance Part I", "The Second Renaissance Part II" and "Kid's Story".
	The Matrix Reloaded	Yes	Yes		Yes
	The Matrix Revolutions	Yes	Yes		Yes
2005	V for Vendetta	Second unit (uncredited)	Yes	Yes		Along with writing and producing the film, they also did uncredited second unit directing work which includes the fighting scenes such as V's climactic fight against Creedy's men. They edited the movie together with McTeigue and they were in control of the final cut.
2007	The Invasion		Rewrites (uncredited)			Reportedly the studio brought them in to rewrite 30% of the film (with Collider reporting over 66%) to include action scenes and a new ending. They asked to remain uncredited.
2008	Speed Racer	Yes	Yes	Yes
2009	Ninja Assassin			Yes
2012	Cloud Atlas	Yes	Yes	Yes		Co-directed with Tom Tykwer.
2014	Google Me Love (short)				Yes	Written and directed by their nephew Ryan Eakins. The short was created at Lana and Lilly's request and they also picked the subject matter of love.
2015	Jupiter Ascending	Yes	Yes	Yes

Television

Year	Title	Functioned as				Notes
		Creators	Showrunners	Screenwriters	Directors
2015–present	Sense8	Yes	Season 1: The Wachowskis Season 2: Lana Wachowski	Season 1: The Wachowskis Season 2: Lana Wachowski	Season 1: The Wachowskis Season 2: Lana Wachowski	Co-created with J. Michael Straczynski for Netflix. Lilly Wachowski took a break from film making after the first season but retained her shared "created by" credit with her sister.

Music videos

Year	Title	Artist	Notes
2009	"Epilepsy Is Dancing"	Antony and the Johnsons	The music video was choreographed by Sean Dorsey and was censored in North America. The production team behind the video collectively call themselves AFAS.

Additionally classifying themselves as "lifelong rabid Bulls fans" they created a revamped introductory animation for Chicago Bulls to open the 2006–2007 regular season.

Video games

Year	Title	Functioned as		Notes
		Directors	Screenwriters
2003	Enter the Matrix	Yes	Yes	Based on a 244-page script by the Wachowskis, the game features close to one hour of live action sequences directed by them, and their collaboration with the game's staff for the creation of another hour of in-engine cinematics and more. Also directed the game's trailer.
2005	The Matrix Online	Yes		The Wachowskis picked Paul Chadwick as the game's writer and directed him with the first year's theme: "Peace and the ways people wreck it" and a starting point: "the death of Morpheus and the hunt for his killer". Furthermore they reviewed and dictated changes to Chadwick's early drafts, such as prohibiting the death of one character. Overall they weren't directly involved with the creation of the game, in comparison to their other two efforts, instead opting to act as consultants of Chadwick.
	The Matrix: Path of Neo	Yes	Yes	In collaboration with Zach Staenberg, the Wachowskis edited footage from the previously released films, anime and game to retell the story from the point of view of Neo. Additionally they scripted new locations and encounters, some of them being scrapped content from the films, along with their appearance to the player to humorously explain the reasons behind the creation of a new ending for this adaptation of The Matrix trilogy.

Comic books

Year	Title	Functioned as		Notes
		Writers	Publishers
1989–1994	Clive Barker's Hellraiser	Yes		Lana Wachowski is credited as a writer on stories included in issues 8, 9, 12, 13 and the Hellraiser: Spring Slaughter – Razing Hell special.
1992	Clive Barker's Nightbreed	Yes		Lana Wachowski is credited as a writer on issue 17.
1993	Clive Barker's Book of the Damned	Yes		Lana Wachowski is credited as a writer on volumes 1, 2 and 4.
1993–1994	Ectokid	Yes		Lana Wachowski is credited as a writer on issues 3–9. Lilly Wachowski reportedly worked on it as well.
1999–2004	The Matrix Comics	Yes	Yes	Written "Bits and Pieces of Information", the first part of a conceived four part story. Parts of it were later incorporated in "The Second Renaissance" short in The Animatrix. Most of the comics originally published on whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com, along with a few new ones, were collected on two printed volumes, published by the Wachowskis' comic book company, Burlyman Entertainment.
2004–	Doc Frankenstein	Yes	Yes	Based on an original idea of Geof Darrow, later reworked by Steve Skroce, the duo ended up writing it.
2004–2007	Shaolin Cowboy	Recap only	Yes	Issues 2–7 begin with a humorous recap of the story written by the Wachowskis, and narrated by a talking mule named Lord Evelyn Dunkirk Winniferd Esq. the Third.

The Art of the Matrix book credits them for including their screenplay and additional art. The Wachowskis also wrote an introduction to the 2005 published Vol. 2: Tag trade paperback of Ex Machina comic book, being big fans of it. Additionally Lana Wachowski wrote the introduction to the 2012 published No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics collection of LGBTQ comic book stories.

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Title	Result
1997	Deauville American Film Festival	Grand Special Prize	Bound	Nominated
	Fantasporto	Best Film		Won
	Outfest	Grand Jury Award – Honorable Mention: Outstanding American Narrative Feature		Won
	Saturn Awards	Best Writing		Nominated
	Stockholm Film Festival	Honorable Mention		Won
2000	Amanda Awards	Best Foreign Feature Film	The Matrix	Nominated
	Hugo Awards	Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form		Nominated
	Mainichi Film Concours	Readers' Choice Award for Best Foreign Language Film		Won
	Nebula Awards	Best Script		Nominated
	Saturn Awards	Best Director		Won
		Best Writing		Nominated
2004	Golden Raspberry Awards	Worst Director	The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions	Nominated
2007	Hugo Awards	Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form	V for Vendetta	Nominated
	Nebula Awards	Best Script		Nominated
	Saturn Awards	Best Writing		Nominated
2012	Online Film Critics Society Awards	Best Adapted Screenplay (shared with Tom Tykwer)	Cloud Atlas	Nominated
2013	German Film Awards	Outstanding Feature Film (shared with Grant Hill, Stefan Arndt and Tom Tykwer)		Nominated
		Best Direction (shared with Tom Tykwer)		Nominated
2016	Golden Raspberry Awards	Worst Director	Jupiter Ascending	Nominated
		Worst Screenplay		Nominated

External links

• Lana Wachowski at IMDb
• Lilly Wachowski at IMDb