The Slow Ascent of ‘Jupiter Ascending’

Jupiter Ascending, a special effects-packed blockbuster directed by The Matrix creators Lana and Lily Wachowski, had a short, disastrous run in theaters in February 2015, but you wouldn’t know it now. When news broke it would soon be returning to Netflix this August, loud, vocal swathes of the internet treated the film like a returning hero. Praise for Jupiter Ascending appeared in tweet after tweet after tweet. Old articles started recirculating. Decider‘s own Meghan O’Keefe wrote a piece praising the film, which inspired at least one other staff member to check it out. Seemingly out of nowhere, it became obvious that a lot of people liked Jupiter Ascending, and that their numbers were growing.

The Jupiter Ascending-assance may not qualify as a nationwide phenomenon, but the Wachowskis’ (to-date) final feature-length film has shown every sign of turning into a full-fledged cult hit. It’s the sort of under-seen oddity that leads devotees to tell two friends who tell two friends and so on until its catchphrases and key scenes become a kind of shared code among the initiated. Far from being forgotten, it now seems destined to enjoy a life beyond it more successful contemporaries. (How much thought have you given to Taken 3 lately?) It’s the same sort of bittersweet victory enjoyed by flops-turned-cult movies like Donnie Darko, Dazed and Confused, and others. But a changing film business means the bitter threatens to overwhelm the sweet.

The Wachowskis weren’t exactly on a roll when they made Jupiter Ascending. In 1999, The Matrix gave them a breakout hit while redefining what special effects could do and pushing the boundaries of the summer blockbuster as a new century loomed. But that century hasn’t always been kind to the filmmaking Wachowskis. The Matrix sequels met with financial success but drew mixed notices from critics and fans alike. Their 2008 adaptation of the classic anime Speed Racer, an attempt at making a crowd-pleasing film for all ages, drew mostly negative reviews and struggled at the box office. Cloud Atlas, for which they teamed with German director Tom Tykwer for an ambitious adaptation of David Mitchell’s time- and genre-straddling novel, didn’t fare much better, dividing critics and failing to drum up crowds at theaters.

All have been subject to reassessments in the years that followed. Though not as crowd-pleasing as The Matrix, both The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions have proven to be rich, dense efforts worthy of further study. Even Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas have found appreciative fans who missed the films the first time around. (A kinetic, silly, eye-popping film, Speed Racer‘s fate now seems especially baffling.)

The Wachowskis were doubtlessly hoping that Jupiter Ascending would break the cycle and give them an unqualified hit, and while it doesn’t play as a calculated film, it’s also one that doesn’t ignore the demands of the box office. Describing the plot concisely takes considerable condensation and glossing over peculiar details, like Sean Bean’s pricelessly named character Stinger Apini explaining how bees defer to royalty. But the broad strokes are pretty simple: Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones (see above re: priceless character names), a Chicago housecleaner descended from Russian immigrants who’s actually the genetic reincarnation of an intergalactic queen and thus the rightful owner of Earth. Rescued from her enemies by Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), a former soldier whose genetic make-up is part dog, she’s whisked away from Earth and becomes the object of a tug-of-war battle between Titus (Douglas Booth) and Balem Abrasax (Eddie Redmayne), siblings who hope to exploit her claim on the Earth to harvest its resources.

Okay, maybe it’s not that easy to summarize. But it features amazing visuals that confirm the Wachowskis kept pushing themselves after the innovations of The Matrix, a light touch, and fun performances. Both Tatum and Kunis find the right straight-faced approach for a movie in which the heroine falls in love with a dog-man — and generate real chemistry in the process — while Redmayne’s whisper-then-scream baddie threatens to fold the definition of camp into itself then back again. And, à la The Matrix, the Wachowskis don’t shy away from weightier themes, using the story to comment on both environmental decay and the excesses of modern capitalism. It’s filled with the inventive imagery, big clashes between good and evil, and action set pieces that, in theory at least, ought to attract blockbuster-hungry moviegoers.

In theory. In practice, Jupiter Ascending came in third at the box office over its opening weekend with an $18.3 million haul that put it behind American Sniper in its seventh week of release — it earned $23.3 million — and the weekend’s biggest debut at $55.3 million, another story filled with animal-human hybrids exploring strange worlds: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. Critics weren’t much kinder. The film attracted sympathetic notices from The Village Voice and a handful of other publications, but many more mixed and negative reviews. (In the New York Times, Manohla Dargis lamented its “mildewy storytelling.”) After Jupiter Ascending warp-speeded out of theaters, it seemed headed to oblivion.

Its revival, however, was probably inevitable. Unusual touches and all — and elements like Redmayne’s performance and Jupiter’s earnest insistence that she’s “always loved dogs” when Caine suggests they won’t work as a couple pretty much ensure the movie’s not for everyone — it remains a bold, weird, big-hearted movie, a misfit toy waiting for the right owner. It’s heartening that it seems to have found them on Netflix, but how much will it matter? Times have changed and the Wachowskis broke through in a much different filmmaking environment than today’s. Brian Raftery’s recent book Best. Movie. Year. Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen offers a history of the movies that made 1999 so memorable. It includes chapters on The Matrix and other big hits but also on groundbreaking 1999 releases like Office Space, Fight Club, Election, and Magnolia, all modern classics — and all box office disappointments.

But a box office disappointment in 1999 meant something different than it does in 2019. It’s not that, say, 20th Century Fox didn’t want Fight Club to make more money, but flops then had the potential to have a longer second life due to home video, particularly once the DVD market started to boom. Picking up more viewers as the years went by, they proved some movies — and moviemakers — could prove to be good long-term investments despite an initial loss. As with most matters related to Netflix and money, it’s unclear how much Warner Bros. makes from Jupiter Ascending‘s streaming rights, but it’s likely less than what, say, The Big Lebowski (another box office underachiever) made across multiple reissues during the height of DVD era.

In other words, if a film becomes a hit the second time around on a streaming service, does it matter? And if it does, does it matter like it used to? Will we see the influence of Jupiter Ascending start to creep into other movies as its audience grows, as with other cult hits? Or will it be a kind of dead end, visited by a happy, appreciative few and ignored by others? That’s a question only time can answer. For now, however, if you want to see Channing Tatum using antigravity boots to propel his dog-faced self across the Chicago skyline, there’s only one movie for you.

Keith Phipps writes about movies and other aspects of pop culture. You can find his work in such publications as The Ringer, Slate, Vulture, and Polygon. Keith also co-hosts the podcasts The Next Picture Show and Random Movie Night and lives in Chicago with his wife and child. Follow him on Twitter at @kphipps3000.

Where to stream Jupiter Ascending