That 70's Show star, Mila Kunis, knew that Jupiter Ascending would fail even before filming began. Written and directed by the Wachowskis, the science-fiction adventure starred Kunis as Jupiter Jones, a house cleaner who encounters the alien warrior, Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), who informs her that she comes from royalty and that her destiny lies beyond Earth. After Caine rescues her, the two embark on a journey of action and romance as the film covers themes regarding the negatives of capitalism and consumerism.
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Jupiter Ascending was released in 2015 and was immediately met with harsh criticism garnering a low 28% Rotten rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Coupled with an abysmal performance at the box office, only managing $183 million against its $210 million budget, the film is considered a major flop by Hollywood's standards. Tatum previously discussed his time on Jupiter Ascending, calling it a "nightmare."
While on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Kunis revealed that she knew that Jupiter Ascending would fail before filming began. The actor explained that prior to production, the budget on the film was cut in half resulting in the movie's planned spectacle compromised by reduced funds. Read what Kunis said about Jupiter Ascending below.
"When did we know [the movie would flop]? Before we started production, because our production got slashed in half. And so the original budget was twice as much, and you can do a lot more with a lot more money, and oftentimes those types of scripts have a very good storyline but extraordinary other things. Right before pre-production, for a multitude of reasons with studios and other things, the budget got cut, and the movie was different."
Why Budget Cuts Directly Impact A Film's Story
With Jupiter Ascending being a high-concept science-fiction space opera, much of the film demanded a high budget to accommodate the visual and special effects needed to realize the Wachowski's grand vision. Kunis appears to understand that cutting the budget, especially by half, impacts not only the film's visuals but its story as well. With reduced funding, scenes may need to be rewritten to lessen the need for effects shots, possibly affecting the quality of the movie's narrative.
Although fans can continue to speculate whether Jupiter Ascending could have been improved by a larger budget, the writing still needs to be strong for the film to succeed. There have been plenty of independent science-fiction films with relatively low-budgets that have still managed to satisfy audiences with their effects and win over critics and fans with the quality of the script. Although Danny Boyle's science-fiction horror thriller, Sunshine, failed to pull a profit at the box office, its strong writing by author and screenwriter Alex Garland garnered praise from critics and the film developed a cult following. With Jupiter Ascending failing both critically and financially, perhaps a greater budget would have done little to save the movie from its scripts faults.