Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, and Jack Whitehall lead the cast of Disney’s Jungle Cruise which has just dropped its first trailer. Based on the theme park ride (that feels like it shouldn’t be a normal sentence to write), Disney delayed the original release of October 11 for a more summer-friendly July 2020 launch.
While the specific reasons for the delay remained unclear, part of the cause could be the also Jungle set Dwayne Johnson led movie that hits cinemas in a couple of months. Give up? It’s Jumanji: The Next Level, the sequel to 2017’s shockingly successful (and enjoyable) reboot of the beloved 90s classic. Even Dwayne Johnson might struggle to sell fans on two Jungle based movies released three months apart. Six months apart, no problem.
Inspired by the famous Disneyland theme park ride, Disney’s JUNGLE CRUISE is an adventure-filled, Amazon-jungle expedition starring Dwayne Johnson as the charismatic riverboat captain and Emily Blunt as a determined explorer on a research mission.
Considering the bar for movies based on theme park rides is pretty low, Jungle Cruise looks like it could be fun, there’s a nice Romancing the Stone vibe with lashings of adventure. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown, The Shallows), Jungle Cruise also stars Édgar Ramírez, Jesse Plemons and Paul Giamatti and is set for a July 24, 2020 release.
Set during the early 20th century, a riverboat captain named Frank takes a scientist and her brother on a mission into a jungle to find the Tree of Life which is believed to possess healing powers. All the while, the trio must fight against dangerous wild animals and a competing German expedition.