A decade ago, Disney revived the Star Wars franchise. Shortly before that, Hollywood made its last attempt to start a film series to rival the Star Wars saga.
In 2025, we have arrived at a special anniversary year. Because a decade ago, we experienced the beginning of the wave of legacy quels that continues to this day. Terminator: Genisys, Jurassic World and Creed brought back popular movie series after a long break with a mix of new and old stars. Arguably the most notable title on this list: Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
In December 2025, Star Wars returned to the big screen and once again proved to be the dominant franchise when it came to epic science fiction in cinemas. Ten months earlier, however, one of the major studios in the dream factory dared to try to compete with this larger-than-life Star Wars with an original story and new characters: Warner Bros. with Jupiter Ascending.
Jupiter Ascending was not Hollywood’s first attempt to create the next Star Wars
Since the resounding success of George Lucas’ Star Wars at the end of the 1970s, Hollywood has basically been trying to get competitive projects in position. The Flash Gordon movie, for example, was a direct reaction to Star Wars. Even James Bond ventured into space with Moonraker. But hardly any of the alternatives launched in the following decades took off.
The glimmer of hope: Jupiter Ascending. With Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, Warner Bros. secured two of the most visionary filmmakers of our time. The two of them had previously brought the Matrix to the big screen and didn’t shy away from adapting Cloud Atlas, which is told across six (!) time levels. If anyone can create a new Star Wars, it’s the Wachowskis.
And indeed: Jupiter Ascending is the only blockbuster of recent years that comes up with its own idea and at the same time takes up typical Star Wars elements – including the reference to pulp stories that are catapulted into the spheres of a space opera. Last but not least, it is about a space princess (Mila Kunis) who is saved by an unexpected hero (Channing Tatum).
The Wachowskis envisioned Jupiter Ascending as a grand space opera, just like Star Wars.
As clichéd and old-fashioned as the premise sounds: In 127 minutes, a gripping sci-fi epic unfolds before our eyes, eager to leave the confines of earthly San Francisco behind and explore the farthest reaches of the universe, while an eerie villain (Eddie Redmayne) seeks to take power over these infinite vastness.
Jupiter Ascending is an adventure film, a love story and an action-packed thriller in search of gigantic images that this space opera presents to us in exuberant colors and details. A space fairy tale that you can plunge head over heels into and completely lose yourself in. Ultimately, however, a film that was denied a long life in the annals of pop culture.
The production of the Star Wars alternative is said to have cost up to 210 million US dollars. With a worldwide box office grossing of 184 million US dollars, the financial flop is obvious. It was panned by much of the critics and audiences didn’t want to be caught up in the new Star Wars either. Not even a cult film, this failed franchise starter failed to achieve cult status.
A new Star Wars could never be established, so a radical alternative took over the cinema
Ten years later, it is all the more clear what a unique film Jupiter Ascending is in the blockbuster landscape of the 21st century. Never again has Hollywood ventured on a Star Wars 2.0 on such a grand scale. One of the few exceptions comes from the international arena: the independent co-production Valerian from 2017. But that was also a massive flop, just like Disney’s John Carter from 2012.
In theory, Guardians of the Galaxy and its two sequels could be listed as a successful example. However, due to its anchoring in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star-Lord and Co. always operate within the confines of a different world. There was never any ambition here to engage in such comprehensive world-building as happens in the galaxy far, far away.
The only sci-fi series currently giving serious competition to Star Wars at the box office is Dune, which is ironic given that David Lynch’s 1980s Dune adaptation did not achieve exactly that. However, we are talking here rather about a radical counter-design that surprises the dreamy space fairy tale about the fight between good and evil from the ambush with a cool game of intrigue.
The new Dune films mark one of the most interesting success stories in recent blockbuster cinema. However, they are not a new Star Wars, as was enthusiastically proclaimed in Jupiter Ascending. Rather, Dune’s triumph raises the question of whether the Star Wars era, which was launched by The Force Awakens in 2015, is already over and audiences are longing for a different kind of space saga.
