The first trailer for the new Anaconda movie has arrived, and it’s not the reboot anyone was expecting. Instead of a straight-faced return to the jungle horror of the 1997 original, the film takes a wild, meta-comedy approach starring Paul Rudd and Jack Black as two childhood friends obsessed with Anaconda who decide, decades later, to make their own reboot. Naturally, things spiral out of control when a real giant snake crashes the production and turns their passion project into a fight for survival.
The tone of the trailer is pure chaos—equal parts parody and monster movie. Rudd and Black bring their signature energy to the setup, bouncing between nostalgic fanboys, bumbling filmmakers, and ultimately reluctant action heroes once the actual Anaconda shows up. There are even nods to the original film, with sly references to Jennifer Lopez and Jon Voight’s over-the-top villainy, but this time the danger feels both tongue-in-cheek and terrifying.
The trailer leans hard into Hollywood satire, with Rudd and Black skewering the very idea of unnecessary reboots while starring in one themselves. It’s giving off serious Tropic Thunder vibes—the kind of action-comedy where the joke is that the movie you’re watching wasn’t meant to be real until it suddenly, horrifyingly, is.
While much of the trailer plays for laughs, the snake itself is no punchline. The shots we do see are gnarly and suspenseful, suggesting the filmmakers aren’t shying away from the horror beneath the comedy. Whether audiences embrace a satirical Anaconda over a traditional monster reboot remains to be seen, but the trailer is undeniably bold. That said, it has been a banner year for blockbuster horror movies with Sinners, The Conjuring LastRites, and Weapons generating huge box office numbers.
Anaconda slithers into cinemas this Christmas.
