Warner Bros.
The critical and commercial mauling of Jupiter Ascending , a $176 million sci-fi film from Andy and Lana Wachowski, creators of The Matrix , has some people worried that studios will now be even more hesitant about greenlighting big-budget sci-fi projects that aren’t part of an established franchise. WIRED’s own Angela Watercutter has encouraged people to see the film, and author Matt London has taken to Facebook to drum up support for the movie.
“The only thing that Hollywood understands is money,” London says in Episode 138 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “And so if we as a community ignore projects like this—like Cloud Atlas —we won’t see more of them.”
But science fiction editor John Joseph Adams refuses to be guilt-tripped into buying tickets for a film he’s sure he’ll hate.
“I really rebel against this idea of supporting something even if we think it’s bad, because we think Hollywood will magically somehow make more movies that are actually good now,” Adams says.
He argues that when bad movies succeed, it only encourages studios to churn out more of the same, and also empowers mediocre filmmakers at the expense of more promising talents.
Watercutter acknowledges this concern, but still thinks that supporting original sci-fi does more good than harm, since many creators benefit from a film’s success, not just those directly responsible for it.
“I don’t know that it’s a straight A to B kind of thing, where you support Jupiter Ascending and the Wachowskis specifically get to keep making movies,” she says. “It’s like, you support this movie, and other people who are in the Wachowskis’ shoes from 10, 15, 20 years ago, now they get their shot.”
Film producer Rob Bland notes even high-profile flops often break even in the end, so box office failures like Jupiter Ascending don’t have as much effect on studio priorities as you might think.
“Film studios don’t really make the money back with the theatrical runs, they make the money back with the streaming and the DVD sales,” he says. “And it seems like with the international bounce that they’re getting, and couple that with the home entertainment revenue, it seems like they’re probably going to make their money back—and probably some profit.”
London also argues that supporting the sci-fi genre isn’t the only reason to see Jupiter Ascending. He thinks it’s a flawed but interesting film that’s been unfairly targeted for scorn, and that in many ways it compares favorably with Guardians of the Galaxy , another recent space opera that was a commercial and critical smash.
“I’m not saying you need to like this movie, or that it’s the best movie I’ve ever seen,” he says. “But I am saying that if you like sci-fi you should check it out, because it is different from the other stuff that you’ve been watching.”
Listen to our complete discussion with Matt London, John Joseph Adams, Rob Bland, and Angela Watercutter in Episode 138 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast (above), and check out some highlights from the discussion below.
John Joseph Adams on the pitfalls of supporting bad movies:
“Whoever wrote the I, Robot movie from a couple years ago—the Will Smith movie—that guy ended up showing up all over the place as if he was some sort of authority on science fiction movies. He wrote a shitty movie that happened to do well at the box office, and now he’s the new golden boy of Hollywood science fiction. And that’s the kind of thing that happens, and I could just see [if Jupiter Ascending does well], now the Wachowskis are going to direct this, this, and this. No! That’s not a good sign. But I think that’s what would happen if we go and support this. And honestly, given that I’ve never liked any of their movies, please, take away their directing cards. Stop giving them more ammunition to let these people make more movies. They shouldn’t be allowed to. They’re taking millions of dollars that could be applied to actually good science fiction movies, and they’re making these overblown spectacles that I find repellent.”
John Joseph Adams on the support for Jupiter Ascending:
“Matt noted how he had seen so much vitriol being spewed against the movie, but I saw the other side of it, where I wondered how there could be so many people basically arguing the same thing as you guys, saying, ‘Oh no, you should really go support this movie.’ This seems weird to me, because there are so many people saying that it’s terrible. And so I wonder, where was this argument when Edge of Tomorrow was in theaters? That was actually a pretty good movie, and yet it tanked. I’d much rather support whoever made that, because that was actually a pretty good movie, but nobody went to go see it. So I just thought that was really strange that this Wachowski movie, that a lot of people are saying is terrible, was getting all of these defenders, whereas something else like that didn’t. So I wonder what it is about this movie that got people coming out to defend it.”
Angela Watercutter on romance in science fiction:
“I think whenever a trailer [contains romance], it sort of triggers this thing where people automatically go, ‘Oh, well that’s girl stuff,’ and get all worried about it, and at the same time I think that sometimes they put that stuff in trailers so that they can try to get women viewers, because they still think that women only want romance. … I remember somebody saying something in a similar vein about the Hunger Games movies, that people who dismiss them possibly just don’t like the idea of a female running the show. Or they get all dismissive about the fact that Katniss is having a love triangle—’What is this, Twilight ?’ I remember I was reading a critic online who said, ‘This is not a love triangle. These are just the only two friends she has.’ Everybody gets all mad about it, whereas if it was a male leader and there were two women in his life, people wouldn’t get all up in arms about it the same way.”
Matt London on fan rage:
“We’re in a period of time where people really love to hate things. There’s this perverse joy in it. And so many reviews are geared toward just piling on as much as you possibly can. And I think there’s this sort of feeding frenzy that’s popped up around this movie, and it’s happened before with others too, where people—especially in the geek communities that we travel in—just love to hate things. And it just feeds upon itself, so that you get more negative reviews piled on more and more negative reviews. I think that’s a big part of why—once people smell blood in the water—that’s what makes those [review] percentages just go down and down and down. … And for me personally, as I’ve become someone who’s now putting my own creative content out into the world, I guess I’m just less interested in that kind of engagement, that sort of overly hostile piling on.”
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