Another day, another reboot that’s about to be unleashed upon us. However, this one veers far enough from the original’s tone and style that it’s fair to call it a total meta “reimagining.”
Yes, Sony is bringing back its “Anaconda” IP with a modern twist. Jack Black and Paul Rudd lead the cast, while Tom Gormican (“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”) taking on both writing and directing duties.
The review embargo has lifted, and things aren’t looking good for this one. The current tally is 43 on Metacritic and 23% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film is projected to have a $20M opening weekend against a budget that’s said to be anywhere between $90-$100M.
Here’s Austin Chronicle’s Steve Whittaker:
Gormican has abandoned any sense of originality and just props the film up on nostalgia-manipulating cameos and clumsy, overused needle drops. Those moments barely cover some astoundingly inept filmmaking, from shot composition to editing, that will make you wish you were watching Anaconda 3: Offspring instead.
Listen, I would be all in for a Paul Rudd-Jack Black team-up, but the trailer for this one was dreadful. The whole thing looked incredibly lazy and misguided. You have to wonder who, in their right mind, got together in a room and agreed to greenlight this thing. Then again, this is coming from Sony—a studio that’s had a terrible year, save for ‘Demon Slayer.’ Icing on the cake: they’re the ones who sold “KPop Demon Hunters” to Netflix.
The 1997 “Anaconda” starred Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, Ice Cube, and Jon Voight. It followed a National Geographic film crew traveling through the Brazilian rainforest in search of the world’s largest and deadliest snake. Before long, the tables turn, and the massive reptile begins hunting them down one by one.
This meta reboot follows Doug (Black) and Griff (Rudd), lifelong friends who dream of remaking their favorite movie, “Anaconda.” When a midlife crisis pushes them into the Amazon to film, a real giant snake turns their chaotic set into a deadly fight for survival.
The project has been in development at Columbia since early 2023 and has gone through “many rewrites” as the filmmaker and studio worked to strike the right tonal balance. It sure looks like they failed in that endeavor.
Back in January, at the Sundance Film Festival, a bidding war emerged over Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite.” A24, Netflix, Searchlight, Focus Features, and NEON among the studios in the mix.