Due to last-minute budget cuts, Mila Kunis realized even before the cameras started rolling that Jupiter Ascending was doomed to fail.
The sci-fi space opera movie Jupiter Ascending is not high on the list of career achievements for Mila Kunis, to say the least. Written and directed by The Wachowskis, the film starred Kunis as Jupiter Jones, a cleaning lady who has a bond with an interplanetary warrior played by Channing Tatum. The budget was around $200 million, but saddening with negative reviews Jupiter ascends upon its release, the film bombed at the box office. It was also a big contender at the Razzie Awards with Eddie Redmayne receiving the “Worst Supporting Actor” award.
Nowadays Kunis would easily look back on Jupiter ascends as a career misstep, but the movie bombing was actually something the actress predicted from the start. Talking about the movie on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz (via IndieWire), Kunis claimed she knew before filming began that the project would be ominous. She says she felt that way when the budget was cut in half, making it clear to Kunis that The Wachowskis no longer had the funding to realize their vision in a way that would satisfy viewers. Or, as Kunis puts it:
“When Did We Know” [the movie would flop]? Before we started production, because our production was cut in half. And so the original budget was twice as much, and you can do a lot more with a lot more money, and often those kinds of scripts have a really good storyline but extraordinary other things. Right before pre-production, for a lot of reasons with studios and other things, the budget was cut and the movie was different… I wish Channing was here because we have some good stories.”
Jupiter’s rise was a low point for Mila Kunis
Happy, Jupiter ascends didn’t derail Kunis’ career, even though the bad reviews at the time weren’t fun to watch. Since then she has appeared in more movies such as The spy who dumped me and a few bad mothers movies. More recently, she took the lead Happiest girl in the worlda film running in select theaters before releasing on Netflix on October 7, 2022.
Meanwhile, Netflix subscribers can also look forward to seeing Kunis reprise her role as Jackie from That show from the 70’s. She will appear alongside most of the other protagonists of that series for the spin-off That show from the 90s, and among those with her will be the real-life husband Ashton Kutcher. The two reunite with other classic stars from that series, such as Topher Grace, Wilmer Valderrama, Laura Prepon, Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp. The show doesn’t have a premiere date yet, but shooting was completed over the summer.