Things are about to get wild in the jungle, and Jack Black and Paul Rudd will be in the thick of the serpentine action. The funnymen-starring Anaconda, a reboot of the 1997 thriller film, has set a Christmas Day release, with PEOPLE unveiling a first look at the action-comedy.
In it, a midlife crisis pushes ride-or-die buddies Doug (Black) and Griff (Rudd) to pursue their dreams of “remaking their all-time favourite movie: the cinematic ‘classic’, Anaconda.” The synopsis, however, hints at more threats in the jungle: “But things get real when an actual giant anaconda appears, turning their comically chaotic movie set into a deadly situation. The movie they’re dying to make? It might just get them killed.”
The meta element comes as no surprise, as Tom Gormican, who was behind the clever meta Nicholas Cage-led movie The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, is directing the project. The filmmaker also penned the script alongside Kevin Etten, with Brad Fuller and Andrew Form serving as producers. Other cast members include Thandiwe Newton (Westworld), Daniela Melchior (The Suicide Squad), Selton Mello (I’m Still Here), Steve Zahn (Treme), and more.
Plot details remain under wraps, but Black has a tantalising tease for fans. “It’s going to be a big f**king snake and it’s gonna rip!” he exclaims at the end of a promo clip for the reboot. Rudd, meanwhile, put a dramatic spin on the release date announcement, saying, “You wanna get scared? You wanna laugh? You wanna celebrate with your friends? Or maybe you’re alone and sad and have nobody, but just wanna forget about that? It’s coming out on Christmas in 2025.”
“Dude, have you seen this snake? It’s in that room, right there,” says Black at one point, directing his co-star to follow him out of the frame. “They’re about to feed it a donkey — come on!” Chaotic energy is a given, it seems.
The original Anaconda pic starred Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson and Ice Cube as members of a National Geographic film crew taken hostage by a snake hunter (Jon Voight), who’s tracking down a giant, legendary green anaconda. Despite receiving mixed-to-negative reviews, it became a box office success and is now considered a cult classic, spawning four sequels over the years.
The Anaconda reboot slithers into theatres on 25 December.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
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