The Matrix director Lilly Wachowski has said that she is struggling to find funding for her new film due its all-transgender cast.

Lilly, who directed the 1999 action film alongside her sister Lana Wachowski, is currently in the production process for her next film, titled The Hunted.

But in a new interview, Lilly, 58, said that nobody in Hollywood wanted to finance the film due to its trans representation.

Appearing on The Business podcast, Lilly explained: “People like [The Hunted], but they really don’t want to make it because it’s [got a] wall-to-wall trans cast.”

The Hunted, which Lilly co-wrote with partner Mickey Ray Mahoney, is currently in development with Natasha Lyonne’s Ariadne studio and Lilly’s Anarchists United.

When it came to securing funding, Lilly admitted that she would “have to get creative and figure out different ways that I can get this in front of people”.

Explaining the personal significance of the project, Bound director Lilly said: “This is a script that was extremely important for me to write.

“It was a response to what is happening in the world for trans people, and it gave me a hugely cathartic receptacle to dump all of my anger and rage and frustration into.”

Previous reporting has described The Hunted as “a biting political thriller in the tradition of Wild in the Streets and V for Vendetta”, set in a dystopian America where trans people are “brutalised and erased to the margins of society”.

The film follows two trans women on the hunt for the perpetrator of a serious crime that leads them to the upper echelons of government.

Last week, the script was publicly shared at a live reading held at Los Angeles venue Dynasty Typewriter.

Lilly’s earliest work in her career came in partnership with her sister, who is also trans. The Wachowskis worked on the acclaimed thriller Bound, three Matrix movies, including sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, as well as Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending.

The sisters also collaborated on the Netflix series Sense8, the second season of which Lana directed alone, marking their decisions to work more independently.

Lilly was not involved in the fourth Matrix film, 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections, explaining at the time that her choice to leave the franchise was a “tough one”.

Lana shared that she was transgender in 2008 after years of speculation, with Lilly also coming out in March 2016. In 2020, Lilly confirmed long-held fan speculation that The Matrix is an extended allegory for the transgender experience.