After the world and time-spanning spectacle of Cloud Atlas confused and amazed viewers last year, it has gotten harder to judge a project from the Wachowski siblings in the same light as most other directors. It seems almost impossible to think they’d ever return to material that even vaguely resembled that of their first feature, 1996’s lesbian crime story Bound. But then, nobody really wants them to, and it’s not surprising that their next project, Jupiter Ascending, is just as fantastical as everything they’ve done since.
And when you think about go-for-broke directors who immerse themselves in their films’ universes like the Wachowskis do, the conversation almost naturally will land on Terry Gilliam, the Monty Python alum who has been polarizing audiences for almost his whole career. (But everybody loves Time Bandits, right?) Via his Facebook page, Gilliam let everyone know that he will play a bit part in Jupiter Ascending, and now that these worlds are finally colliding, everything magically makes sense in the world.
His message, which was posted beneath a set photo, stated, “Off at dawn tomorrow to pretend to be an actor in the new Wachowski’s (sic) film Jupiter Ascending. It’s a small but vital part (or so I’m told).” Not that much is known about the film’s plotline anyway, so we could know his name and occupation and still have no idea who he is.
Mila Kunis will play a Russian immigrant who is the lowest of the low in a futuristic universe where humans are on the low end of the totem pole. Once an genetically-engineered ex-military man (Channing Tatum) drops down to Earth to find her, she discovers that her DNA is identical to the all-powerful Queen of the Universe, and her destiny comes fully into view.
Jupiter Ascending will hit theaters on July 25, 2014. Terry Gilliam’s next film is the “quest for our existence” drama Zero Theorem, which probably won’t come out for another seven years, but at least there weren’t any set disasters.
