‘Matrix’ Co-Director Plays ‘Fascist’ Card, Blasts Film Critics

Lilly Wachowski wants a major movie studio to fund the director’s passion project.

So far, no takers.

Wachowski famously co-directed both “Bound” and, later, “The Matrix.” The latter rocked Hollywood, changing the way we process action movies. The film’s provocative themes and aesthetic gave Wachowski the ability to tell any story, any time.

Except the director’s follow-up projects either disappointed (two “Matrix” sequels) or outright flopped.

Think: “Jupiter Ascending,” “Cloud Atlas” and “Speed Racer.” Three high-profile duds, at least from a box office perspective.

Why would any studio trust Wachowski at this point?

Except the director has an answer for this creative dry spell. It’s fascism, don’t you know.

I feel like the industry is a microcosm of what is happening all around the world: the consolidation of wealth, the corporate consolidation that you’re seeing. It’s creating an ecosphere where fascism can thrive, and so within that ecosphere, queer stories, trans stories, Black and brown stories are all on the chopping block.

Even venerated film directors are struggling to get new projects off the ground. John Waters comes to mind. So does John Sayles. Kathryn Bigelow spent time in Director’s Jail following her 2017 flop “Detroit” before her 2025 Netflix comeback, “A House of Dynamite.”

Wachowski takes big swings, no doubt. Perhaps a better approach moving forward is taking a cue from the next generation of visionaries, directors like Curry Barker and Kane Parsons.

Make more with much, much less. Those filmmakers rocked the box office with projects that cost less than $10 million.

Earlier in the IndieWire chat, Wachowski skewered film critics, a body that leans relentlessly to the Left. Not according to Wachowski. Consider this reflection on the release of “Bound,” a film following a lesbian couple battling with the mob.

I remember the first screening that we had [at Sundance] was hugely tempered because the day of our screening — that morning — a review came out in Variety by Todd McCarthy, and he just trashed the film…The film played well, it won over the crowd, but since then, I was always skeptical of critique and came to understand, much later, the motivation, and why do people write what they write. Sometimes that stuff is seeped-in misogyny; sometimes it’s seeped-in homophobia; sometimes — a lot of the times — it is seeped-in, sort of, anti-socialist tendencies. And so you end up with these reviews, or critique, that has nothing to do with your film, but has to do with ideological differences.

Wachowski is partly right. Modern film critics routinely let their biases, both cultural and political, sway their reviews. It’s often in the service of a left-leaning agenda.

Just ask Jim Gaffigan, who bristled at critics for reviewing elements of his film that didn’t exist.

Wachowski suggested this liberal body is misogynist, homophobic and anti-socialist.

That seems … unlikely, to say the least.