Our Anaconda Reboot Scoop Confirmed
It was all the way back in 2020 that The Hollywood Reporter first reported that an Anaconda reboot was on the way, but it was GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT that broke the news last May that Paul Rudd (Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire) had been offered a role in the film. Now, not only has THR confirmed our scoop on Rudd, but they’ve added Jack Black (Borderlands) to the list of stars circling the project. They also confirmed an earlier scoop from us that Tom Gormican (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent) would co-write and direct the reboot.
The New Story
THR says that Kevin Etten—who also collaborated with Gormican on other projects like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F—will co-write the Anaconda reboot.
Instead of the National Geographic film crew from the 1997 original, THR says the Anaconda reboot will follow friends struggling with midlife crises. They go to the rainforest to remake a favorite movie, but instead find themselves facing almost certain death from the eponymous beast along with other natural dangers.
Black And Rudd’s Roles
The THR report was a little hazy on which actor would be playing which role in the Anaconda reboot.
One source told THR that Black would play an aspiring director while Rudd would play a one-note actor struggling to find work after starring in a cop show. However, the publication spoke to several sources, one of whom claimed it would be Black playing the actor while Rudd would play the wanna-be director.
One interesting thing to note is that if it is Black as the director and Rudd as the actor in the Anaconda reboot, both parts would harken back to earlier roles for the respective stars.
Black famously played obsessed director Carl Denham in Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong remake, while Season 3 of the comedy murder mystery series Only Murders in the Building featured Rudd as Ben Glenroy, a Hollywood star whose most well-known role was in the fictitious show CoBro about a shapeshifting crimefighter who changed into a snake man.
Development On The Reboot
While development on the Anaconda reboot was first announced back in 2020, THR reports things didn’t really kick into gear until last year. Since then, the project has apparently gone through many rewrites with Gormica, Etten, and Columbia trying balance all the story elements.
OG Anaconda
The first Anaconda hit theaters in 1997. The heroes are a documentary film crew working on the Amazon. While the crew has no interest in filming giant snakes, an obsessed hunter played by Jon Voight (Megalopolis) tricks them into helping him track the beast.
The film raked in $137 million against a $45 million production budget, and spawned a series of sequels.
Anaconda is also noteworthy as a big stepping stone for a number of young acting careers. Along with starring music celebrities who were just starting acting careers like Jennifer Lopez (Atlas) and Ice Cube (Friday), it was one of the earliest screen roles for Owen Wilson (Loki), and featured Danny Trejo (Machete) before he was a known quantity.
More News To Come
Hopefully we won’t have to wait much longer to hear more specifics about the upcoming Anaconda reboot. So far there’s been nothing else announced on Gormican’s plate, and with the relatively low budgets of horror films—and the potential for huge returns—rendering them more and more attractive to film studios, it wouldn’t be surprising if Anaconda is a big priority for Columbia and its parent company Sony.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
