A science fiction horror film starring Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron? Sounds like something that should have been a surefire hit in the late 90s, but then everything turned out differently…
Johnny Depp still had his most commercially successful phase ahead of him with the leading role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the series ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, but through his repeated collaborations with Tim Burton (‘Edward Scissorhands’) and cult films such as ‘Pirates of the Caribbean ‘Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas’ he was already one of the most popular Hollywood stars in 1999. “Mad Max: Fury Road” star Charlize Theron was considered a sought-after newcomer whom moviegoers knew from the mystery thriller “The Devil’s Order” (starring Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino), among others. Just four years later, she received an Oscar for Best Actress for her role in “Monster” (2003).
But with “The Astronaut’s Wife – Evil has a new face” the two stars went bad in every respect: in the film Depp plays the astronaut Spencer Armacost, who flies into space together with his colleague Alex Streck (Nick Cassavetes) to find a to get. satellites. While they are working, contact with Earth is lost for a short time, after which both lose consciousness. Back on Earth, Streck dies, while Spencer seems strangely changed. His wife Jillian (Theron) is concerned about her husband’s health – and soon a former NASA employee shows up at her door expressing a sinister suspicion…
Director and screenwriter Rand Ravich (who produced his only directorial work to date with “The Astronaut’s Wife”) floated a kind of psychological horror film in the style of ‘Rosemary’s child” for – and provided the sci-fi chamber play with all kinds of references to Roman Polanski’s occult classic. For example, Nick Cassavetes is the son of filmmaker and actor John Cassavetes, who played the male lead in Rosemary’s Baby.
In the end, that didn’t help much: the reviews were terrible – to date, “The Astronaut’s Wife” has received no more than 15 percent positive reviews on the American review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes (while the audience isn’t too enthusiastic either at 33 percent).
The bigger problem, however, was the box office result: The film only managed to gross $19.6 million at the box office – on a budget of $75 million! A bitter setback for everyone involved. In fact, before production began, several well-known studios competed for the film – on paper it all sounded promising…