Dwayne Johnson has confirmed that reshoots are done on Disney's Jungle Cruise movie, and posted a new photo to mark the event. The Jungle Cruise theme park ride debuted at Disneyland in 1955 and remains part of the Adventureland region of most Disney parks to this day. Disney's been working on a big screen adaptation for years, and even had Tom Hanks and Tim Allen attached to star early on. Johnson eventually boarded the project in 2015 and production got underway about three years later, with Johnson leading a cast that includes Emily Blunt, Edgar Ramirez, and Paul Giamatti.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Jungle Cruise was originally scheduled to arrive this fall on October 11. However, Disney later shifted the film back to 2020 and bumped Maleficent: Mistress of Evil up to take its previous spot. It's possible this was done in part to make more room for Jungle Cruise's pickup photography, which got underway last month. Either way, the reshoots weren't too extensive, as evidenced by the fact that they've already wrapped.
Johnson recently took to his Instagram account to confirm the Jungle Cruise reshoots are done. He also included a photo of himself and Blunt on the film's set, to go with the announcement. You can check both out in the space below.
Official details are still under-wraps, but Jungle Cruise reportedly takes place in the early 20th century and follows a riverboat captain (Johnson) as he leads a scientist (Blunt) to find a legendary tree in South America's jungles, before a rival expedition does. Most of the people working on the film have likened it to Indiana Jones at some point, and Johnson does it again in this post, referring to Blunt's character as "the female version of INDIANA JONES ". The movie is also said to take inspiration from The African Queen, when it comes to the oil and water relationship between its leads. The Rock reaffirms as much during his latest update, noting that his character really only cares about "my money, my liquor and my cat", and has little interest in his companion's ambitions and loftier goals.
Jungle Cruise has avoided controversy up to now, save for a rumor that Jack Whitehall (who's playing Blunt's onscreen brother) portrays a stereotypically gay character in the film. The movie doesn't seem to be in any new trouble either, given how quickly the reshoots were completed. Collet-Serra is known for specializing in visceral, fast-paced genre entertainment like Non-Stop and The Shallows, so an action-adventure like Jungle Cruise should play to his strengths as a director. Assuming that's the case, it could end up giving Disney a new franchise to fill the hole left by Pirates of the Caribbean, now that the other Disney theme park ride-turned tentpole has (seemingly) run out of fuel.
Source: Dwayne Johnson
