Assassins (1995)

The Wachowskis first arrived in Hollywood as twentysomething comic book writers with grand ambitions to push their storytelling beyond established conventions. In 1995, they landed their first produced screenplay with the thriller Assassins, starring Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas as rival professional hit men, and shepherded by Hollywood heavyweights Dino De Laurentiis (as an executive producer) and Joel Silver (as a producer). Getting the script to the screen, however, proved to be a trial that would shape the rest of their careers.

Andy Wachowski: [Assassins] was the second script that we had written. We wrote this other thing called Carnivore. It got a lot of interest, but it was too weird. It was about eating the rich, and so it wasn't popular for some reason.

The first cash payment that we got on Assassins was from Mel Gibson. He had read it, and he was like, "Where did this come from?" We were like, "Look, we have to make a decision," because we had an offer from DDLC, [producer] Dino De Laurentiis' company. Then our agent told Mel's company that, "You know, look, these guys are super poor. They're calling from a gas station phone right now." So Mel Gibson wrote us a check for, like, $1,000 each to wait 24 hours or something like that. We were like, "$1,000! Yes! We're rich! We're rich!" And then [Mel] was like, "No." The time period ended, and we optioned the script to Dino.

Lana Wachowski: He gave us an option payment, which was $10,000, and we were like, "Oh my god! We don't have to work for years!"

AW: Retirement plan!

The script bounced around Hollywood — at one point, Wesley Snipes was attached to star with Joe Johnston directing — until it ultimately landed at Warner Bros., with Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon, The Goonies) directing.

AW: Right off the bat, we did not click with Mr. Donner. He wanted to make something that wasn't as dark as our script. And eventually he took it away.