On March 31, 1999, the writing and directing sibling team of Lana and Lilly Wachowski release their second film, the mind-blowing science-fiction blockbuster The Matrix.
Born and raised in Chicago, the Wachowskis both dropped out of college and started a house-painting and construction business before they got into the film industry. They collaborated on two screenplays, the second of which was made into the action movie Assassins (1995), starring Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas. A year later, the Wachowskis wrote, directed and executive-produced their debut film, Bound. Critics praised the relatively low-budget crime thriller, about lesbian lovers who steal from the mob, and it became a cult hit.
The Wachowski’s next project, however, brought them to a whole new level. Filmed for $70 million, The Matrix was a stylish, innovative and visually spectacular take on a familiar premise–that humans are unknowing inhabitants of a world controlled by machines–central to films such as Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Matrix starred Keanu Reeves as a computer hacker who learns that human-like computers have created a fake world, the Matrix, to enslave the remaining humans while keeping them in the dark about their dire fate.
Guided by the sleek, mysterious Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss), the hacker is dubbed Neo and told he alone can play the crucial role in deciding the fate of the world. Packed with slow-motion camera tricks and references from a myriad of sources–including comic books, the Bible, Lewis Carroll, Eastern philosophy and film noir—The Matrix also stunned viewers with its Hong Kong-style fight scenes, choreographed by the martial-arts master Yuen Wo Ping and performed with the help of invisible wires allowing the characters to fly through the air.
Greeted with enthusiasm by computer-gaming fanatics and mainstream audiences alike, The Matrix earned a staggering $470 million worldwide and won four Academy Awards, for Best Editing, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.
The Wachowskis had always envisioned The Matrix as a trilogy, and they shot back-to-back sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, in Australia. Released six months apart in 2003, they were generally agreed to be less successful than the original film. All in all, however, the franchise–including a best-selling video game, Enter the Matrix–earned the production company, Warner Brothers, more than $1 billion. The Wachowskis, meanwhile, became famously reclusive, refusing to promote the Matrix sequels or give interviews.
As a follow-up to their phenomenal success, the Wachowskis wrote and produced for Animatrix, a series of short films based on The Matrix, and wrote and produced the provocative action thriller V for Vendetta (2006). In 2008, the Wachowskis returned to directing (as well as writing and producing) with Speed Racer, a film adaptation of the Japanese anime series by the same name. Later films include Cloud Atlas (2012) and Jupiter Ascending (2015). A sequel to The Matrix Revolutions, The Matrix Resurrections, was released in 2021.
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Lana + Lily.
Well, did those 2 nutbars slice it all off or are they still pretending and posing?
You never know, as per Caitlyn Jenner however, I suspect he was approached back in the day and offered this proposition: “We’ll put you on a Wheaties box, but you’re going to owe us a favor later on.” Later on: “About that favor, we just received word from the Illuminati Control Center that you have to become a trans now.”
The Wachowski brothers stole the story from a black, female science fiction writer who later sued them and won.
False. The case was ruled in favor of the defendants for The Matrix and Terminator.
The case ruling is on scribd, Stewart v. Wachowski, 574 F.Supp.2d 1074 (C.D. Cal., 2005).
I hear she did win a lawsuit against her former attorney though.
There is another suit for that steaming pile of shit Revolutions being plagiarized from another writer too.
ZFG, out.
P.S. They are both completely sideways and full of shit and the only two movies they did worth a crap were The Matrix and V for Vendetta.
Those two projects are masterpieces.
The Matrix IMHO was a brilliant film, but those two (or now three?) sequels were trash.
Not just regular Hollywood trash, but pretentious, incoherent trash. The fight sequences were great of course, but the second film (? title) was one of the few films during which I actually left the theater early to go do something useful.
So what! The Wachowskis got the story to the screen where it could be enjoyed by millions. The black female science fiction writer didn’t. So throw her a few bucks. She’s a failure.
I remember sitting in the theater after the movie ended and thinking-” that was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” Too bad the brothers lost their minds. I agree with the reviewer in that the sequels weren’t as good. Frankly, I thought the third one sucked.
The Matrix was an eye-opener, then I read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and the blinders really began to fall away.
It’s almost as though the Matrix and the movie Avatar could be wound into one and create the way the world turns.
Quarter century now. So much fun.
I figure it’s a good one to have on the ‘ole DVD too in case they get around to stealth editing entire movies in the streaming collections. Fascinating what has happened in Hollywood over the past couple decades.
Visionary stuff.
Over here at TBP seems most have taken, not the red, blue or black pills, but instead the “clear” softgels, facilitating minds eager to bore down to the raw, unvarnished truth about our Most Fucked Up Planet. And FJB.
Lana and Lily.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The Matrix indeed.
What I remember was that they didn’t steal the story from some black chic but that she was carpetbagging off the original author who was definitely on the spectrum big-time and easily rolled. If you really stopped to think about it there’s no way those two Wachowski freaks had the ability to produce the actual storyline content. That’s why the sequels weren’t any good.