It seems this year’s Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters have found screenwriters just plain tossing out the book of baby names. From Cypher and Kitai Raige in “After Earth” to Raleigh Becket and Stacker Pentecost in “Pacific Rim,” it seems a good, sci-fi spectacle requires character names that are so unique you’ll struggle to remember them. But maybe it’s just the genre as a whole, as “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” is nothing but adventurous names (Plutarch Heavensbee!) while “Ender’s Game” will get us closer to people like Mazer Rackham and Dink Meeker. So it only makes sense that the folks who brought us Neo, Apoc and Cypher will also have some interesting character names for their next effort.
Production is getting underway on The Wachowskis‘ “Jupiter Ascending,” and while the official plot synopsis confirms pretty much everything we knew already, it does reveal the names of the characters played by Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis, and they are comic book ready:
From the streets of Chicago to far flung galaxies whirling through space, Jupiter Ascending was conceived and written by the Wachowskis, who are also directing. Award-winning producer Grant Hill, with whom the writer/directors have collaborated since “The Matrix” Trilogy, is producing the film together with the Wachowskis. Roberto Malerba and Bruce Berman are serving as executive producers.
Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) was born under a night sky, with signs predicting that she was destined for great things. Now grown, Jupiter dreams of the stars but wakes up to the cold reality of a job cleaning toilets and an endless run of bad breaks. Only when Caine (Channing Tatum), a genetically engineered ex-military hunter, arrives on Earth to track her down does Jupiter begin to glimpse the fate that has been waiting for her all along – her genetic signature marks her as next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos.
So, Jupiter Jones and Caine? Alright then. It actually sorta sounds like a sci-fi “Cinderella,” so the names seem fitting for what appears to be a fairy tale-like story. Guess we’ll find out when the movie drops on July 25, 2014. [ScreenCrush]