Snow White Sci-Fi, "Jupiter Ascending", Gets Release Date

Snow White is getting a retelling sci-fi style!

Jupiter Ascending, starring Mila Kunis as Jupiter Jones (ie the Snow White character), is well into production and just got a release date: July 25, 2014.

Here's a little more about the film:

Jupiter Ascending is said to be the Snow White fairytale fused with Japanese pop culture in a sci-fi and futuristic mythological masterpiece. From the same minds that brought the sci-fi world The Matrix and Cloud Atlas the project will begin shooting this year. (Source)

In a twist to the classic fairy tale ‘Snow White’, Mila Kunis plays the only person who possesses the same perfect genetic makeup as the highly evolved Queen of the Universe. But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the young woman threatening her reign is a Russian immigrant cleaning lady on Earth. A bounty hunter is dispatched to take her down, but instead, falls in love with the earthling and decides to become her protector. The Wachowski siblings (The Matrix trilogy, Cloud Atlas) are directing the sci-fi action film with Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow co-financing. (Source)

Mila Kunis having the perfect DNA? I'm sure there are more than a few (male, especially) people who might agree with that. ;) 

The Huntsman, in this case a Bounty Hunter, hired to kill Jupiter/Kunis, is Channing Tatum.

Speaking of Channing Tatum and his involvement, while his character name in Jupiter Ascending is listed as "Caine", he's not exactly playing a regular human. 

"I'm a splice, splices are essentially built in a test tube. I'm a hybrid wolf and human. And half albino, so I'm a little defective." That is definitely going to throw everyone off, but these mutations are part of the world this is set in. It's set "in a universe where humans are near the bottom of the evolutionary ladder," and splices are higher up.

Here's a synopsis (or at least, what the Wachowski's are revealing for now):
✒ ✒ ✒ ✒ ✒ (click the "Read more" link below this line) ✒ ✒ ✒ ✒ ✒ 

Jupiter Jones (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 (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.

And two surprise little pieces of info, for an added twist:

Director and acclaimed filmmaker Terry Gilliam (Twelve Monkeys, The Fisher King) to Cameo in The Wachowski’s Jupiter Ascending. Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum and Sean Bean (Edit FTNH: apparently as Stinger, a "Han Solo-type" character) star in the sci-fi adventure directed by the Wachowski’s (Cloud Atlas, The Matrix). 

The main cast list confirmed so far are: Channing Tatum (Bounty Hunter, Caine), Mila Kunis (Jupiter Jones/Snow White), Sean Bean (Han-Solo type character), Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth, Tuppence Middleton ("a girl from another world"), Doona Bae (supporting role to be revealed), James D’Arcy, Tim Pigott-Smith and Terry Gilliam ("a small but vital part").

A lot of the film is being kept quite secret, other than it should be a lot of sci-fi fun (the extras costume are proving quite out-there but I'm thinking that's a good thing)...

The costumes and makeup on some of the extras look like 17th century French royalty that had their clothes tailored in Southeast Asia.  I like it.  We can also see some extras who I assume will also be wearing masks/helmets over the non-blackened parts of their faces. (You can see the couple small behind-the-scenes extras-taking-a-break pics, being referred to HERE.)

... and if you're interested in seeing some of the behind-the-scenes stunt filming you can go check HERE. What's even more interesting, though, is that they're certainly aren't doing standard sci-fi filming - they're trying to keep it as real as possible:

"We are breaking ground on—I mean it’s a tough shoot. We're doing stuff that’s never been done, inside the camera, in the CG world, and the physical stuff. There's very little, if not no, digital stuntmen in the movie. All the stuff is really real and it’s been hard figuring it out because they don't like doing anything that's been done before. So we're definitely doing some new stuff, so hopefully everybody likes it. And it's fun, it's got some cheek to it. It's a cheeky movie a little bit." (Source)

I like the mentality because it show their approach to the work - and very possibly gives a good hint at how they will treat the Snow White tale too (which they're currently keeping very tightly under wraps). Clearly we have a Snow White in a servitude position at the start (and she's not 7 yrs old like Grimm's, or 14/15 yrs like Disney's, she's at least 20... "ish"), a Queen hunting her down (though who is playing her hasn't been revealed yet), an initially conflicted huntsman, a "royal court" (of sorts),  but the closest thing I can find to dwarfs (or bandits) is extras with partially sooty faces (!), so we've yet to see who Jupiter's other allies will be.

An action/adventure sci-fi with this cast and director-team sounds like a fun ride and potentially very interesting.

We're hoping: 1) Mila Kunis is more "Black Swan" and less "Oz" on this one and 2) Sean Bean lives...

You can keep track of any Jupiter Ascending news at the official website HERE.

Sources: Scified, Awards Daily, MovieNewZ, Collider