Their Success: Following their acclaimed 1996 crime drama Bound, the Wachowskis of course wrote and directed their most successful work to date, The Matrix, which spawned two relatively divisive (yet financially successful) sequels, as well as a money-printing merchandise line. With the series' inventive visuals and complex technical aspects, the team left their mark on Hollywood forever more, ensuring that slow-motion would never be used the same way again. Their Failures: Sadly, their post-Matrix career has been thoroughly mediocre. 2008's Speed Racer was a critical and commercial bust, Cloud Atlas received decent reviews but just barely made its budget back, and just this year, their Jupiter Ascending was widely panned and just scraped its $176 million budget back. Given that the original Matrix is their one truly great film, it's enough to make you wonder if it was pretty much just a fluke, and the rest of their movies simply involved studios throwing far too much money at them, and fans being far too insistent that the guys who made such an awesome movie must surely be capable of more. Doesn't much seem like it, though. How They Can Save Their Careers: They've already admitted themselves that they probably won't be seeing big budgets again any time soon after three $100+ million flops, but in honesty, that's probably a good thing. It'd be interesting to see how they would approach another drama like Bound, or even a blockbuster film with a more conservative budget, like $50-60 million.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
