Lilly Wachowski Clarifies Reason She Did Not Return To Direct ‘The Matrix Resurrections’

The Matrix Resurrections was released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day, but the highly awaited film is missing one of the creative mavericks who created the iconic franchise. 

Pioneering out trans filmmakers Lilly Wachowski and sister Lana Wachowski wrote and directed the first three Matrix films, but Lilly has not returned to the film series which made her a household name. 

Lilly spoke of her choice not to return during an appearance at Television Critics Association Summer Tour virtual  panel, where she was promoting the second season of her Showtime series, Work in Progress. 

“That’s a tough one,” Lilly said when asked why she  didn’t return for The Matrix Resurrections. 

 Exhaustion and Grief Left Lilly Looking for Change  

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— Lilly Wachowski (@lilly_wachowski) May 30, 2021

“I got out of my transition [in 2016] and was just completely  exhausted because we had made Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending, and the first season of Sense8 back-to-back-to-back.  We were posting one, and prepping the other at the exact same  time. So you’re talking about three 100-plus days of shooting for  each project, and so, coming out and just being completely  exhausted, my world was like, falling apart to some extent even while I was like, you know, cracking out of my egg. So I needed  this time away from this industry. I needed to reconnect with  myself as an artist and I did that by going back to school and painting and stuff.”

“[Lana] had come up with this idea for another Matrix movie, and  we had this talk, and it was actually — we started talking about it  in between [our] dad dying and [our] mom dying, which was like  five weeks apart, and there was something about the idea of  going backward and being a part of something that I had done before that was expressly unappealing.” 

Matrix Films Made Wachowski Sisters World Famous  

The first Matrix, released in 1999, became a massive hit and pop  culture phenomenon, grossing over $463 million at the box office.  The following two sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix  Revolutions, both released in 2003, grossed $741 million and  $427 million respectively. 

The franchise made the sister act one of Hollywood’s most  valuable and visionary creative teams.  

“I didn’t want to have gone through my transition and gone through this massive upheaval in my life, the sense of loss from  my mom and dad, to want to go back to something that I had  done before, and sort of [walk] over old paths that I had walked  in, felt emotionally unfulfilling, and really the opposite — like I was  going to go back and live in these old shoes, in a way. And I  didn’t want to do that,” Lilly said. 

“And it felt like a new thing that I could go do and be myself in,  more than go back and do the same thing that I sort of did  before. And so, like Lana made [Matrix 4] for different reasons… I can’t  speak for her, but that’s what I was feeling at the time.” 

When asked whether the sisters would collaborate on future  projects, Lilly remained noncommittal. ”Who knows? Who  knows? Maybe,” she told reporters. 

 Lana Talks Of Her Sister’s Absence From The Film  

rereading Lana Wachowski's reason for making Matrix Resurrections and tearing up all over again pic.twitter.com/sul7JvNNBr

— Brandon Vision 3D (@Thatoneguy64) December 23, 2021

Lana Wachowski, who appeared as a panelist at the Art of  Scriptwriting at the Berlin International Literature Festival in  September, spoke of Lilly’s absence from the production as well  as her own reason for returning to the films which made her  famous. 

“I asked Lilly if she wanted to do this, and she wanted to process  her grief differently. And she was in art school and she was on a  different path and she didn’t want to go this way to process her  grief. But, you know the story evolved and I told my wife the story  and she said, ‘Oh my god you have to make it,’ and I was like,  ‘Ugh Matrix, can’t go back there.’ And I asked my friends, and my  friends were really the sort of decision-making process that  helped me say, ‘OK yeah let’s do this,’ because these people are really the reason we went back and did it again.” 

“When mom and dad passed, I went to [Lilly] and said, ‘Look, this idea came to me. I can see that it’s about me working with my  grief, and I was thinking, do you want to work on it together?’ I  thought maybe it would be cool that we go back, and we go back together and this thing that where we started. And she said, ‘I get it, I know, I see, I feel it, but this is not what I want to do,’” Lana  Wachowski told The Hollywood Reporter at the premiere of The Matrix Resurrections, which was held at San Francisco’s Castro  Theatre. 

“‘I need to do it my own way.’ That’s what grief does. Grief spirals  us off in different directions, and you can see that there’s a lot of Mom and Dad in Work in Progress. She’s doing something similar,  but not the same. I wanted to go back and feel this thing again,  and she wanted to go off and do this other thing.” 

Lilly Creatively Charged by Work on New Queer Series  

In an in-depth interview with them, Lilly Wachowski was effusive  about her new project, Work in Progress, now entering into its  second season on Showtime. Lilly is the executive  producer, writer and show-runner on the series. 

“There was something about the material that spoke to me as a  freshly out-of-the-hopper trans woman actively involved in attacking binary structures. Being able to focus on myself as an individual, as a queer  individual, as a trans individual, on Work in Progress has been  super fulfilling,” Lilly said. 

“For queer folks, there’s something to the idea of being seen and  being able to come together in groups that’s so validating. As a  trans person, when I stick my head up from the ground and see another trans person, that connection is super important.”

“There’s something super satisfying about making explicit queer  art,” Lilly told them.  “That was definitely one of the things that drew me to Work in Progress, because I get to tell queer stories and trans stories as a  now trans person. I don’t know if I’ll go back to subconscious or  subliminal storytelling, or allegorical storytelling, especially when it  comes to queerness.” 

Work in Progress “is queer as fuck,” Lilly told Vox. “Queer and trans as fuck. I think all the trans people that come up to me and  say, ‘Oh my God, The Matrix! It unlocked so many things for me.  Thank you so much.’ All those people will watch this show.  They’re going to watch the show and they’re going to really like it.  Because it’s sweet and it shows trans people and queer people in  a very normalizing and loving way.” 

‘The Matrix Resurrections’ Now In Cinemas  

The Matrix Resurrections is currently in cinemas and reunites  original cast members Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss as  well as Jada Pinkett Smith, who returns as Niobe. 

New cast members include Out actors Jonathan Groff and Neil Patrick Harris, as well as Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Yahya  Abdul-Mateen II. 

The film was released in US theatres and on HBO Max simultaneously on December 22 and has already grossed $69.8 million in  international box office receipts.