curriculum, in 1983 and 1985. Former classmates recall them playing Dungeons & Dragons and working in the school's theater and TV program. Lana went to Bard College, in New York state; Lilly attended Emerson College, in Boston. Each dropped out before graduating, and they ran a house-painting and construction business in Chicago. Beginning in 1993, they wrote several issues of Ectokid for Marvel Comics' Razorline imprint (created by horror novelist Clive Barker), which were credited to Lana. They also wrote for the series Clive Barker's Hellraiser and Clive Barker's Nightbreed for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint. Film and television careers Early film projects In the mid-1990s they went into film writing, including the script for Assassins in 1994, which was directed by Richard Donner and released in 1995. Warner Bros. bought the script and included two more pictures in the contract. Donner had their script "totally rewritten" by Brian Helgeland and the Wachowskis tried unsuccessfully to remove their names from the film. They say the experience gave them the perspective that they should become directors or "[they will] never survive as writers in this town". Their next project was the 1996 neo-noir thriller Bound, for which they wrote the script and made their debut as directors. The film was well received for its style and craft, and was noted as one of the first mainstream films to feature a same-sex relationship without it being central to the plot. Taking advantage of the positive buzz, the Wachowskis asked to direct their next picture, The Matrix. The Matrix franchise They completed The Matrix, a science fiction action film, in 1999. The movie stars Keanu Reeves as Neo, a hacker recruited by a rebellion to aid them in the fight against machines who have taken over the world and placed humanity inside a simulated reality called "the Matrix". Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano also star. The movie was a critical and commercial hit for Warner Bros. It won four Academy Awards, including for "Best Visual Effects" for popularizing the bullet time visual effect. The Matrix came to be a major influence for action movies and has appeared in several "greatest science fiction films" lists. In 2012, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant". After its success, the Wachowskis directed two sequels back-to-back, The Matrix