Disney Is Making a ‘Jungle Cruise’ Sequel
It may not have set the world on fire from a box-office perspective, at least at first, but Disney is apparently pleased with the performance of its most recent blockbuster, Jungle Cruise. The film, based on the long-running Disneyland attraction, opened in late July and has continued to draw in audiences all through August. Last weekend, it crossed $100 million in ticket sales in the U.S. (It’s grossed another $87 million overseas.)
And so, per The Hollywood Reporter, Disney is now planning a sequel. They claim that both of the first films stars, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, will be back for the second movie — along with director Jaume Collet-Serra and “the film’s producing team of John Davis, John Fox, Beau Flynn, Johnson, Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia.”
If you saw the movie, you know that it had a lot of plot mechanics that involved keeping almost all of the scenes set in and around a cruise through the Amazon. Johnson played a boat captain with a mysterious past and Blunt played a scientist searching for a mythical plant with healing powers. The end of the movie mostly resolved all those issues, leaving the characters free to go elsewhere. So you have to wonder whether Jungle Cruise 2 will find a new excuse to stick Johnson and Blunt back on another boat in the middle of a scary jungle, or if they’ll branch out into other locales.
Or what about this? Maybe this time Blunt and Johnson discover a race of talking and singing birds, and you can make Jungle Cruise 2: The Enchanted Tiki Room. Let’s kick this corporate synergy up a notch or two!