Disney is clearly trying to recapture some of that early Pirates of the Caribbean magic with the upcoming Jungle Cruise movie, another title based on a popular theme park attraction. However, that's not the only franchise this film is being compared to. Recently, the film's visual effects supervisor, Jake Morrison, compared the project to another huge action-adventure series, Indiana Jones. According to Morrison...
I mean I've got to say, I'm incredibly excited about the whole thing, it's really like Dwayne is in a new Indiana Jones film. It's Dwayne at his best, and that is a man with some severe charisma. And then we're putting him on this huge adventure, and they've just literally announced the female lead in the picture is Emily Blunt.
Without knowing a great deal about what the Jungle Cruise movie is really going to be about, it might seem premature to go comparing it to an Indiana Jones movie. However, based on what little we do know, it might not be that far off the mark. Dwayne Johnson himself is the one who has made Pirates of the Caribbean comparisons, and that, combined with the fact that Johnson himself has been cast in the lead, would indicate that we're looking for a Disney adventure movie in that vein. Combine this with the Disney Parks attraction the film will be based on, and it certainly gives off an early 20th-century vibe, putting it in the same time period as the Indiana Jones films, which makes Jake Morrison's comments to ComicBook.com make sense.
With the actual next Indiana Jones movie delayed into 2020 at least, fans of the formula may be looking forward to Jungle Cruise. While the film doesn't have a release date yet, at this point it seems like we're likely to get the theme park based movie before the actual Indiana Jones returns.
Jungle Cruise will see Dwayne Johnson play a riverboat captain who is enlisted by a scientist played by Emily Blunt. She is searching the jungle for some sort of cure, and need's Johnson, and his boat, to help her find it. Jungle Cruise is being helmed by The Shallows director Jaume Collet-Serra.
Disney's track record for creating theme park based feature films isn't as strong as its string of live-action remakes of its animation catalog. While the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has been a solid moneymaker, the actual quality of the movies is a topic of debate (except the first one, which is stellar). Beyond that, however, other attempts to make successful theme park based movies, like The Haunted Mansion and Tomorrowland, have failed both critically and financially. Here's hoping that Jungle Cruise finds the formula to make it a success, bad jokes and all.
