If there is anyone who knows a thing or two about taking familiar rules and breaking them apart, the Wachowski Siblings definitely make the cut. Yet years after The Matrix made her one of Hollywood’s most influential filmmakers, Lilly Wachowski says the industry has repeatedly closed its doors on the stories she now wants to tell.

Her latest comments have put a sharper point on a problem that has followed her recent career: queer and trans projects have found considerably less enthusiasm in Hollywood than her reputation might suggest.

After helping bend Hollywood’s rules about reality, Lilly Wachowski says she is still struggling to get the industry to make room for hers.

Lilly Wachowski recently detailed several projects that have stalled in an interview with Variety, including Cosmoknights, an intended television adaptation of Hannah Templer’s comic book. With Amy Poehler producing, the team took the project around Hollywood with a pure source and a presentation video Wachowski had assembled. However, what she described as “Star Wars with lesbians in space,” was apparently promptly rejected. 

“I’ve pitched a lot of wonderful, cool queer stories and trans stories, and Hollywood didn’t want any of it,” the The Matrix Reloaded director revealed. The filmmaker ultimately summarized the situation bluntly.

“I cannot find a studio that will do any of it,” she said. 

Another pitch, she told Variety, was an adaptation of Gretchen Felker-Martin’s Manhunt, the dystopian novel that had appeared on several bestseller and year-end lists. Wachowski said both projects were being pursued around 2022, but neither secured a studio. 

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If the traditional Hollywood door keeps staying shut, Wachowski is now trying a rather different entrance.

Lilly Wachowski launched Anarchists United in May 2026, a production company created with producer David C. Simon, as per the same Variety interview. The venture gives her a new avenue for developing material beyond the conventional studio pitching process, potentially changing how projects such as her earlier queer adaptations are approached.

That shift comes after a filmography that has rarely played it safe. Wachowski co-created The Matrix with her sister Lana Wachowski, followed by Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, Jupiter Ascending and The Matrix Resurrections. Her television work has included Sense8 and Work in Progress, while her recent projects have continued to explore gender and identity more directly.

Whether Anarchists United can finally move her shelved ideas toward production remains to be seen. But the company's existence gives Wachowski something her stalled pitches apparently could not: a greater say in deciding which stories deserve to leave the page. For now, the irony is hard to miss. The filmmaker behind one of Hollywood's most enduring challenges to reality is still searching for an industry willing to challenge its own.

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What do you think of Lilly Wachowski's Hollywood reveal? Let us know in the comments.