Jungle Cruise

**Jungle Cruise** is a 2021 film directed by Juame Collet-Serra, and written by Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, John Norville and Josh Goldstein.

## Plot

In 1556, Don Aguirre leads Spanish conquistadors to South America to search for Lágrimas de Cristal[b] Tree, whose flowers cure illness, heal injuries, and lift curses. After most conquistadors die, the Puka Michuna tribe heals the survivors with the Tree's flowers. The tribal chief refuses to reveal the Tree's location, so Aguirre stabs him and burns the village. The dying chief curses the conquistadors, making them immortal and unable to leave sight of the Amazon River; the jungle recaptures anyone attempting to escape.

In 1916 London, Dr. Lily Houghton's Tears of the Moon research is presented by her brother, MacGregor, to the Royal Society, claiming that the Tree's flowers could revolutionize medicine and aid the British war effort. The Houghton’s request access to a recently acquired arrowhead artifact. Lily believes it and an old Amazon map are the key to finding the Tree. The society denies the request, believing the Tree is a myth and female scientists are inferior. Lily steals the arrowhead, narrowly evading Prince Joachim, an ambitious German royal also seeking the Tree.

Arriving in Brazil, Lily and MacGregor need a boat and a guide to take them down the Amazon. They hire skipper Frank Wolff, who offers cut-rate jungle cruises embellished with faked dangers and corny puns. Frank initially declines, saying the trip is too dangerous, but he reconsiders upon seeing the arrowhead. Frank steals back his repossessed boat engine, and the trio departs after escaping Joachim, who pursues them in a U-boat.

In Frank's cabin, Lily notices photos and sketches of modern inventions, as well as maps, drawings, and research on the Tears of the Moon. She accuses Frank of seeking the Tree, though he insists he gave up long ago. Puka Michuna tribe, disguised as cannibals, captures the group as one of Frank's faux dangers that he was unable to cancel in time. Lily is angry and doubts Frank's honesty. The tribal chief translates the arrowhead's symbols, revealing the Tree's location and that it only blooms under a blood moon.

Meanwhile, Joachim locates the conquistadors petrified inside a cave and frees them by diverting the river, on the conditional offer to lift their curse if they retrieve the arrowhead for him; the Spaniards attack the tribe and fatally stab Frank. Lily escapes with the arrowhead. As she crosses the curse's boundary, vines capture the pursuing Spaniards, dragging them back into the jungle.

To the Houghton’s' shock, a fully revived Frank is found the next morning. Frank reveals he is Francisco Lopez, one of the cursed conquistadors who were once on a noble expedition to save Aguirre's gravely ill daughter but attacked the village. To defend the tribe, Frank trapped the other conquistadors after years of fighting, away from the river where they turned to stone. He then spent the next four centuries unsuccessfully searching for the Tree, as the artifact was protected by the then tribal chief's daughter; it would later be kept in London museum for Dr. Albert Falls.

Lily and Frank continue to La Luna Rota[c] Waterfall where they discover and raise a submerged temple. Meanwhile, Joachim captures MacGregor, forcing him to reveal Lily's location. Frank, Lily, MacGregor, the Germans, and the Spaniards all converge in the temple that houses the Tree. It is discovered the arrowhead is actually a heart-shaped locket containing a gemstone. After placing the gem and locket into the trunk, the dormant tree blooms under the blood moon. As a fight ensues, Lily recovers one flower. The Germans drown, Joachim is crushed to death, and Frank crashes his boat to block the river, petrifying him and the Spaniards. Lily, realizing her true feelings for Frank, sacrifices the flower to lift his curse and restore his mortality. Frank, who wanted to end his life, decides he will continue living to be with Lily. The moon's last beam blooms a single flower, allowing Lily's research to proceed.

Upon their successful return to England, Lily becomes a full professor at the University of Cambridge and the Royal Society offers her full membership, which she rejects and guides Frank in London.

## Cast and Characters

* Dwayne Johnson as Frank Wolff / Francisco Lopez de Heredia
* Emily Blunt as Dr. Lily Houghton
* Édgar Ramírez as Aguirre
* Jack Whitehall as MacGregor Houghton
* Jesse Plemons as Prince Joachim
* Paul Giamatti as Nilo Nemolato

## Music

In January 2019, it was announced that James Newton Howard joined the production as the film score composer. By August 2020, it was revealed that Metallica collaborated with Howard on an instrumental version of the song "Nothing Else Matters", for the film. According to the band's drummer Lars Ulrich, Metallica worked on the film after Walt Disney Pictures president Sean Bailey, felt like Jungle Cruise was "the right fit" for a collaboration between Disney and Metallica. Bailey had been "always looking for the right match where there was a way that Metallica could contribute to some Disney project". The band members recorded their parts from their individual studios, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The score was recorded in February 2020 by a 99-person orchestra, with vocals provided by 40 members from the Los Angeles Master Chorale. In order to add a "regional flavour", Howard incorporated panpipes and Brazilian percussion instruments. Frequent Metallica collaborator Greg Fidelman served as associate producer and engineer. The soundtrack album was released on July 30, 2021.

## Production

### Early Versions

In December 2004, it was announced that Jungle Cruise would be developed for Mandeville Films, with a script by Josh Goldstein and John Norville. Following the success of Pirates of the Caribbean, the film was announced to take place within the twentieth century, and was loosely inspired by the theme park attraction of the same name which featured prominently in Disneyland's grand opening in 1955. In 2006, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar were in talks to write the film. In February 2011, it was announced that Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, who had previously worked together in the Toy Story franchise, would star in the long-gestating film, with a script to be written by Roger S. H. Schulman.

### Pre-production

In August 2015, it was announced that Walt Disney Pictures was revamping the film adaptation, to star Dwayne Johnson. The previous script originally written by Goldstein and Norville would be rewritten by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra with the intention to harken back to its period roots; John Davis and John Fox signed in as producers. Johnson, who did a lot of research before getting into the role, announced in April 2017 that he would co-produce the film under his Seven Bucks Productions, and expressed his interest in having Patty Jenkins helm the project, but in July 2017, Jaume Collet-Serra was announced as the director of the film. In January 2018, Michael Green was reported to have rewritten the script, previously worked on by Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne; also Emily Blunt signed in, as Johnson wanted her to be his co-star.

### Casting

In March 2018, an open casting call was made for the other characters in the film, including men and women of all ethnicities, between ages 17 to 90, and children of 6–14 years old. In the same month, Jack Whitehall was cast as the brother of Blunt's character. Six months later, it was reported that he would have a coming out scene in the film with Johnson; this would be the second incidence of a gay character in a live-action Disney film, the first being Le Fou, portrayed by Josh Gad, in the 2017 adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. There was some backlash over the report, with some online expressing anger over a straight man being cast as a "camp" gay character.

In April 2018, Édgar Ramírez and Jesse Plemons were added to the cast as villains with the former being "a man with a conquistador background". In May, Paul Giamatti was cast to portray a "crusty harbourmaster." In June, Quim Gutiérrez joined the cast to portray one of the villains. In July, it was announced that Veronica Falcón, Dani Rovira and Andy Nyman had joined the cast. Before Falcón was cast as the Trader Sam, a role inspired by a character at the theme park who is originally a male, it was being discussed whether the role would be portrayed by a male or a female in the film.

### Filming

The first span of the shoot began on May 16, 2018, in Hawaii, where a port town was set up at Kapaia Reservoir, Kauai, near Wailua Falls. The set took one month to scout, two months to design and four months to build, dress and landscape, while being challenged by the floody rains. Other shoot locations include the town of Lihue, the Kauai Plantation Railway and Huleia Stream. After seven weeks, the shoot then moved for a major course at Blackhall Studios, Atlanta, where a pool was set up in a large tank as the river, as well as the jungle in it. Some scenes were also filmed at Oxford College of Emory University.

Two boats of length "39 feet" were built for easy logistics in filming at both the locations, revealed production designer, Jean-Vincent Puzos. Paco Delgado said that while some of the suits are original from the twentieth century, the costumes for the main characters and the tribals were especially made for the film, for which he researched the cultures of different tribes in the Amazon. He told that Amelia Earhart was the inspiration for Blunt's costume. Joel Harlow did make-up for 400 background characters to detail their appearance whether with a sunburn or an insect bite, also he made tattoo designs for 65 tribal characters. Tanoai Reed and Myles Humphus were Johnson's stunt doubles while Lauren Shaw was Blunt's.

The film cinematographer Flavio Martínez Labiano revealed that the blue screen technology was used. Magenta tinted lights were used for a sequence of the tree. He also wanted to show colourful "London in the summer" unlike many other films which depict London in winter when "it's foggy and it's blue". Arri Alexa SXT Plus cameras were used, with specially designed C Series Anamorphic Prime Lenses by Panavision. To shoot the underwater sequence, a puzzle set was built in the second tank and then it was filled with water. Ian Seabrookand, an underwater cinematographer, told that it about took two weeks to shoot simultaneously while the main cast was also busy shooting in the first tank, so the stunt doubles had to be present there too. He told that while Johnson was a strong swimmer, Blunt, on the other hand, showed no fear despite being a novice in acting underwater. In case, the water tank also had emergency exits for her on right and left sides of camera. The set had to be pulled out of water by a crane so he held the camera throughout.

Filming wrapped on September 14, with about 95 days of principal photography. A few re-shoots took place before June 2019, which took three weeks in Atlanta. Johnson shared that the film pays homage to The African Queen, Romancing the Stone, and Indiana Jones.

### Post-production

Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl served as the sound designers, while Joel Negron served as the film editor; with DNEG, Industrial Light & Magic, Rodeo FX, Rising Sun Pictures, and Weta Digital providing the visual effects, along with The Third Floor. It took about a year in the post-production stage, but was shut down in March 2020 due to the pandemic, however, it resumed in the summer and completed in September 2020.

After filming and before the post-production phase, the teams were sent to Amazon rainforest, Brazil, and Costa Rica forest, where they recorded the actual surroundings, including "pristine wildlife and hundreds of species of exotic birds", so the background effects library can be created for the film, using different types of microphones, including ambisonic and parabolic. Two Alexa Minis, a drone and several cameras were used for the reference photography and footages, which took about three weeks.

The port town, the water and the jungle, all were built on a limited scale and were extended through CGI to create backgrounds. Plate shots were also captured at the Colorado River; these were used to animate the turbulent and aerated water, so the boat can be animated running at 200 kmph on the river as its journey is seen in the film. The 3D team made such effects like "light reflecting off the water, bugs flying around and dew glistening on leaves", so the film weather looks humid summer. The submarine was also digitally extended, after it was shot in a tank. To visualize the explosions by torpedo, rubber and wooden structures were used.

To portray the character of Proxima, a stunt actor in jaguar morphsuit as well as a stuffed toy were on set. To animate it for the film, a collection of plates from big cats was used with most references taken from a female jaguar in San Diego Zoo, before its 3D modelling and sculpting, with details like a mark on her forehead, a folded over ear, and the muscle and skin system. Other animals were also observed to create its reaction on interactions. A pet cat also made an appearance as baby Proxima. In sequences of the pink river dolphins, each one was animated separately to build its own character, while the piranhas were also created with CGI.

To animate the conquistadors, the frogs were recorded from Costa Rica forest, honeycomb dripping sound was used, sounds of pressurized air releases were used for the snakes, and sounds of wood stress were used; each character was built with different body parts to make it not completely human. Materials were gathered to study the actual movements of the snakes for the animation, and the character was made serpentine. The character play for the tree guy was completely animated, except some of his only facial expressions. Initially, there were ideas to explore more of the conquistadors with different characteristics, but these were settled on four only.

The scene for the Tree of Life was animated after taking inspirations from "Banyan trees, Baobabs, Angkor Wat and native South American trees" to give it an ancient look. The branches were made in higher resolution "to keep the Tree very organic and verging on gnarled". The tree growth and petal variations were observed, and lighting balance was considered, in order to animate the exposing and reverting of the petals' luminosity after merging different shots; the sequence also contains fully-digital characters.

Most of the environmental surroundings and water elements were built and animated on Houdini, while the greenery was developed on SpeedTree.

## Release

### Theatrical and Streaming

Jungle Cruise had its world premiere at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California on July 24, 2021. It was released in the United States on July 30, 2021, in RealD 3D, 4DX and IMAX simultaneously in theatres and on Disney+ with Premier Access for US$29.99. It had a special screening on July 29, 2021, by D23 at El Capitan Theatre.

Initially, it was slated for October 11, 2019, before being moved to July 24, 2020, and was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2021, Disney announced that the film would be released simultaneously in theatres and on Disney+ with Premier Access, due to the continued closure of theatres in markets like Brazil and Europe as the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant surged. It also released in India on 24th September 2021

### Home Media

Jungle Cruise had a digital release on August 31 and will be released via 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD on November 16; this will include 16 minutes of 11 deleted scenes, and six bonus featurettes.

## Reception

### PVOD Viewership

In its opening weekend, Disney reported the film made $30 million from worldwide Disney+ Premier sales, with Samba TV saying $23.3 million of it came from 770,000 U.S. households. Through its first 10 days of release, Samba reported the film had been streamed in 1.5 million households for a running domestic Premier Access gross of $44.98 million.

### Box Office

As of October 22, 2021, Jungle Cruise has grossed $116.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $96.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $213.1 million. With an estimated combined production and promotional cost of $362 million, the film needed to gross around $500 million worldwide in order to break-even.

In the United States and Canada, Jungle Cruise was released alongside Stillwater and The Green Knight, and was projected to gross around $25 million from 4,310 theatres. The film made $13.4 million on its first day, including $2.7 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to slightly over-perform, debuting to $35 million to top the box office. The opening was met with a polarized response from industry insiders, with some noting the film managed to finish above projections while others blamed the pandemic and simultaneous digital release for eating into possible grosses, with one financial insider telling Deadline Hollywood that "the model diminishes the aggregate streaming revenue as well as cuts into a movie's theatrical gross." In its second weekend, the film fell 55% to $15.7 million, finishing second behind newcomer The Suicide Squad. The film made $9 million in its third weekend, $6.2 million in its fourth, and $5 million in its fifth.

In other territories, the film debuted to $27.6 million from 47 markets, below its $40 million projections. Its largest markets were the UK ($3.2 million), France ($1.6 million), and South Korea ($1.2 million). In its second weekend, the film made $15.1 million from 49 markets, with the top running-totals being the UK ($8.5 million), Russia ($5.9 million), France ($4.2 million), Japan ($4 million), and Saudi Arabia ($2.7 million).

### Critical Response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 62% based on 319 reviews, with an average rating of 5.90/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Its craft isn't quite as sturdy as some of the classic adventures it's indebted to, but Jungle Cruise remains a fun, family-friendly voyage." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on 52 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 80% of audience members gave it a positive score, with 60% saying they would definitely recommend it.

Writing for Variety, Owen Gleiberman praised Johnson and Blunt's chemistry and said that the film is "a little good old-fashioned" and it "pelts the audience with entertainment in such a lively yet bumptious way that at times you may wish you were wearing protective gear." Korey Coleman and Martin Thomas of Double Toasted both gave it a relatively positive review; even going so far as to predict that other critics would negatively critique it simply because of its premise. However, they were both split on the portrayal of Jack Whitehall's character; while Thomas found it as a positive step forward for LGBT characters, Coleman found it somewhat campy and unnecessary.

Rolling Stone reviewer David Fear gave the film 2.5/5 stars and called it an "attempt to sell the Magic Kingdom's vintage" boat ride as "the next big endless-summer-movie thing", adding that "Blunt's tart apple crisp of a comic performance pairs nicely with Johnson's beefcake served with a side of ham." In The New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis wrote a negative review that the film is a "soggy mess" with "mostly unintelligible" plot, adding that it "exhibits a blatantly faux exoticism that feels as flat as the forced frisson between its two leads". Writing for ABC News, reviewer Peter Travers commented that "made up of spare parts from better movies and at over two-hours in length", the film will be "tough on short attention spans"; however, he added that it is "better than Haunted Mansion and Tomorrowland", other Disney rides based films.