I am interested in anything Andy and Lana Wachowski do. In recent months, that meant following the development of Cloud Atlas, which wrapped production in December. Word surfaced in October the filmmakers are looking at a quick turnaround before their next movie, Jupiter Ascending. The Wachowskis have reportedly reached out to their V for Vendetta heroine Natalie Portman to star in Jupiter. Production is now tentatively scheduled for this fall, so plot details are under lock and key. All we know is the genre: science fiction. With the Wachowskis at the helm, that’s enough for me. More after the jump:
You may recall that Portman was five months pregnant when she won the Best Actress Oscar for Black Swan. The first half of 2011 unloaded the films she shot before the pregnancy: No Strings Attached, Your Highness, and Thor. But Portman has chosen time with her son over working in front of the camera, evident in the reported reluctance to her most serious commitment, Thor 2*. So Jupiter Ascending could be the project that lures Portman out of hiatus. A source told 24 Frames that Portman is “seriously weighing taking the part.”
At the very least, the fact that the Wachowskis are looking at Portman tells us a little more about the film. Jupiter Ascending could join a new wave of female-centric sci-fi with the likes of Prometheus and Gravity on the horizon. Very cool.
In the meantime, Portman is said to be working on a veganism documentary based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals.
*I am intrigued by 24 Frames’ claim that “There’s no word on whether Marvel will move forward with the sequel [to Thor].” The studio had trouble landing on a director, but with Alan Taylor on board and a November 2013 release date announced, Marvel seems all in on Thor 2. If 24 Frames’ sentiment pops up elsewhere, we’ll circle back to it.
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You can see why the Wachowski brothers are wanting to get this movie greenlight and in production BEFORE ‘Cloud Atlas’ is released into cinemas – if that movie doesn’t do well and disappears quickly, it’s unlikely they would get another big-budget project greenlit, at least this way, by the time ‘Cloud Atlas’ is released, the pair will be about to, or have already started filming ‘Jupiter Ascending’, smart move on their part, really…
I don’t know where all this confidence in the Wachowskis comes from. They’re batting way under 500 on their films by my count. And Revolutions should really count as 10 bad movies.
I’ve always had a soft spot for ‘…Revolutions’, it’s a more focussed and less indulgent movie than ‘…Reloaded’, and is closer in spirit to the magnificent original movie. In my humble opinion, if the Wachowski brothers had spent another six months perfecting the scripts and prepping the sequels, not to mention concentrating ALL of the 270 days of shooting on the sequels to the movies themselves, instead of wasting valuable time on filming live-action elements to that ridiculous ‘Enter the Matrix’ video game nonsense, both movies would’ve stood a very good chance of being better all around, but whatever…
Reloaded and Revolutions are both floaters. Bound and The Matrix are the only movies they’ve directed that are worth mentioning. V for Vendetta was good too, but only because they didn’t direct it. Just sayin.
Northern Star…
Go back and watch revolutions again and tell us all with straight characters that it is not as horrible as we think it is. Reloaded was the last great thing they gave to us. V for Vendetta was a huge part of my adolescence and although it wasn’t terrible, the novel deserves much better than the movie they gave it.
Mr. Bettinger,
Naturally you would be excited for anything by the W bros. Their hate for this country made apparent in V feeds yr psycho liberal douche of a mind full of all the lies you take in on a daily basis. Enjoy yr half-baked attempts at good film-making!
RIC dude, I have watched ‘…Revolutions’ several times over the last few years, and it is FAR from a truly great film, and you very well may think it is THAT bad (I’m not denigrating your opinion, which is perfectly legitimate, we all see things differently), but I just have a soft spot for it, considerable flaws and all!
The main problem is the stupid and juvenile Club Hel shootout sequence, which is a very poor redux of the lobby scene from the original movie, if that had been more developed and original, and if the final showdown between Neo and Agent Smith had been more developed, the overall movie would have been better, in my opinion anyway…
I love Natalie. If you too, join to http://www.facebook.com/Portman.Fans