So many factors can go into a film’s success or failure. The complicated process can go wrong before production begins, during production, or in post-production. Before filming Jupiter Ascending, Mila Kunis knew it would fail, as she revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. She was right, as it was released to a poor reception from critics and audiences and was a box office disaster.
The red flag that signaled to the cast of Jupiter Ascending, like Mila Kunis, was the budget getting halved. In the podcast, she revealed that it had “twice as much” money. The 2015 sci-fi film was not a small-budget project with its over $170 million budget, but if it were doubled, it would have made a sizable difference on the production side.
Mila Kunis reveals how she knew Jupiter Ascending would fail at the box office
The film had a lot going for it due to the talent behind it before leading up to its inevitable horrendous release. The Matrix‘s Wachowskis directed and wrote the film. Jupiter Ascending starred Mila Kunis as a Russian maid with the fate of becoming queen due to her DNA. Its cast was stacked with her, Sean Bean, Channing Tatum, and Eddie Redmayne. It also starred Douglas Booth (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Outlander), Tuppence Middleton (Mank), and Christina Cole (Suits).
Mila Kunis was not the only one who saw the problems with Jupiter Ascending. In the podcast, she mentioned how she wished Tatum was with her to tell some “good stories.” Earlier in the year, he told Variety how the production was a “nightmare from the jump” and called it a “sideways movie.”
With its approximately $170 million budget, the sci-fi flick crash-landed by grossing $183 million worldwide. Domestically, it grossed $47 million and internationally grossed $136 million.
