Jungle Cruise is a 2021 American fantasy adventure film based on the Disney theme park attraction. Produced by Walt Disney Pictures it stars Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Édgar Ramírez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, and Paul Giamatti. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra from a screenplay by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, and Michael Green, it tells the alternate history of the skipper of a small riverboat who takes a scientist and her brother through a jungle in search of the Tree of life while competing against a German expedition, and cursed conquistadors.
Plans for a feature film based on the Jungle Cruise ride began in 2004. The project lay dormant until 2011. The original version fell through, and Johnson joined in 2015. Blunt and the rest of the cast joined in 2018 in a revamped version, with filming taking place in Hawaii and Georgia, from May through September that year. The score was composed by James Newton Howard.
Following a year of post-production and a year of further delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jungle Cruise premiered at Disneyland Resort on July 24, 2021, and was released in the United States on July 30, simultaneously in theaters and digitally. The film received mixed reviews from critics, and was a box-office disappointment, grossing $221 million against a budget of $200 million. It also made $66 million over its first 30 days on Disney+ Premier Access.
Plot In 1556, Don Aguirre leads Spanish conquistadors to South America to search for the Tears of the Moon, a mythical tree whose flowers can cure illness and lift curses, believing it may save his ill daughter. After many conquistadors die, the Puka Michuna tribe heals the survivors with the Tree's flowers. Aguirre asks for the arrowhead, that can reveal the Tree's location, but the tribal chief refuses, so Aguirre stabs him and burns the village. As his daughter escapes with the arrowhead, the dying chief curses the conquistadors, making them immortal and unable to leave sight of the Amazon River without being dragged back by the jungle itself.
In 1916 London, McGregor Houghton presents his sister Dr. Lily Houghton's research of the Tree to the Royal Society, which bars female members. The Houghtons hope to revolutionize medicine and aid the British war effort, so they request access to a recently acquired arrowhead that Lily believes can locate the Tree in Lágrimas de Cristal but are denied. Lily steals the arrowhead, narrowly evading Prince Joachim, who is equally intent on finding the Tree for himself and the German Empire.
After arriving in Brazil, Lily and MacGregor hire skipper Frank Wolff to guide them down the Amazon. Frank, who offers jungle cruises embellished with faked dangers, initially declines, citing the dangerous river and jungle, but reconsiders upon seeing the arrowhead. The trio departs after escaping Joachim's U-boat.
While snooping through Frank's cabin below deck, Lily discovers his research of the Tree, but he insists he stopped searching long ago. They are captured by cannibals that are actually the Puka Michuna who work for Frank as part of his contrived jungle cruise. Angered, Lily arrogantly accuses Frank of being a liar and decides to find the Tree herself. Tribal chief Trader Sam translates the symbols on the arrowhead, revealing the Tree's location at La Luna Rota, and that it only blooms under a blood moon.
Meanwhile, Joachim locates the conquistadors petrified inside a cave and partially revives them with Amazon water. Aguirre agrees to bring Joachim the arrowhead in exchange for lifting the curse when he finds the flowers. Joachim diverts river water to flood the cave which reanimates Aguirre and his conquistadors and infuses them with rainforest elements. The conquistadors attack the tribe and Aguirre stabs Frank through the heart. Lily flees with the arrowhead, chased by conquistadors, but the jungle vines pull them back to the river before they can catch her.
To the Houghtons' amazement, an alive Frank soon reappears and reveals he is also a cursed conquistador. He helped search for the Tree to save Aguirre's daughter but sided with the tribe against Aguirre's brutality. After years of endless fighting, Frank trapped his vengeful comrades in the cave away from the river, petrifying them. Failing to find the Tree, Frank remained tied to the river, becoming a tour guide and building a village; causing Lily to realise how wrong she was about him. Lily and Frank travel to La Luna Rota and discover a submerged temple containing the Tree. Meanwhile, Joachim has captured McGregor and forces him to reveal Lily's location. Frank, the Houghtons, the Germans, and the conquistadors all converge at the Tree.
Discovering the arrowhead is a locket containing a red gem, Lily inserts the two pieces into carvings in the bark; the Tree briefly blooms under the blood moon. As a fight ensues, Lily recovers one flower, while the German soldiers drown, Joachim is crushed by a falling rock, and Frank crashes his boat into the temple to block the river, petrifying himself and the rest of the conquistadors to save Lily. Realizing her true feelings for Frank, Lily sacrifices the flower to lift the curse and restore his mortality. The moon's last beam blooms a single flower, which Lily takes for research. Returning to the village port, Frank sells his business and leaves the Amazon to be with Lily.
Returning to Britain, Lily becomes a full professor at the University of Cambridge and sends McGregor on her behalf to reject an invitation to join the Royal Society. Lily and Frank then explore London together as she teaches him how to drive a car.
Cast Dwayne Johnson as Frank Wolff / Francisco López de Heredia: A shrewd and cynical but ultimately noble 400-year-old steamboat skipper who reluctantly agrees to guide two explorers on their quest for the mythical Tree. He eventually reveals his true name and identity as Francisco, Aguirre's adopted brother and one of the cursed conquistadors, forever trapped by the Amazon River. He is a trained cartographer who has spent centuries searching for the Tree to break the curse that made him immortal so he can die peacefully. Meanwhile, he has built a town, and a boat he christened La Quila for his business under "Jungle Navigation Company" while owning a series of tamed exotic cats as pets, each named "Proxima". Emily Blunt as Dr. Lily Houghton: An eccentric, adventurous and virtuous botanist working in a male-dominated field, who hopes to find the Tree in order to harness its power for modern medicine. Possessing an ancient arrowhead and one of Frank's old maps of the Amazon, she proves she is resourceful and capable in martial arts and lock picking skills, despite the fact that she cannot swim until Frank teaches her at La Luna Rota. She wants to prove herself equal to her chauvinistic peers but gains some notoriety for wearing trousers. Édgar Ramírez as Aguirre: A Spanish conquistador who once sought the Tree's power to save his ill daughter, only to be cursed with immortality for his vicious treatment towards its guardians. Temporarily freed by German explorers, he sets out to take revenge on his adopted brother, Frank, for turning on him. His partially decomposed body is now composed of an infestation of snakes and as such, he possesses the ability to convert part or all of his body into snakes. Jack Whitehall as MacGregor Houghton: Lily's younger brother who works as her assistant. He confesses to Frank that the rest of their family disowned him after he was outed as being gay following his third dismissal of marriage to a woman(though this is never explicitly stated), prompting Lily to hire him so he could support himself. He has been loyal to her ever since. As a somewhat foppish snob who adheres to proper etiquette and prefers wearing three-piece suits, he seems ill-suited to jungle life, but gradually develops into a more confident, rugged man by the end of the expedition. Jesse Plemons as Prince Joachim: A narcissistic and ambitious German royal who finances and leads a military expedition with mercenaries to claim the Tree of Life, both to aid Germany's war effort and achieve immortality. He receives aid from the cursed conquistadors after he frees them for his own interest, and communicates with them through their bees and snakes. Paul Giamatti as Nilo Nemolato: The harbormaster at Nilo's River Adventure, Porto Velho, where Frank moors his boat. Nilo owns a Moluccan cockatoo named "Rosita". He is also a business rival, and confiscates Frank's boat engine when Frank is unable to repay him a loan with Rosita constantly quoting "Frank owes me money". This leads Frank to wreck Nilo's prize boats in return.
Additionally, Verónica Falcón plays Trader Sam, the female chief of the Puka Michuna tribe in 1916, who is a longtime friend of Frank's and knows about the curse. The Puka Michuna tribe has a centuries-long history of guarding the Tree, but Sam does not know the exact location herself until Lily shows her the arrowhead. Dan Dargan Carter, Dani Rovira, and Quim Gutiérrez play Aguirre's fellow conquistadors, as, respectively: Gonzalo, whose partially decomposed body is composed of tree parts and vines; Sancho, whose is composed of honeycombs and the colonies of honeybees that ride on him; and Melchor, whose is composed of mud and the poison dart frogs that ride on him. The latter two conquistadors have the ability to dissolve into their constituent parts to rapidly move through the jungle, as well as maintain telepathic control of the creatures inhabiting their bodies. Andy Nyman plays Sir James Hobbs-Coddington, the Royal Society's artifact handler who briefly helps Prince Joachim; while Raphael Alejandro plays Zaqueu, Frank's young assistant.
Other characters include the chief of the Puka Michuna tribe in 1556, played by Pedro López, who cursed the conquistadors; and his daughter, played by Sulem Calderón, who protects the artifact away from the jungle. Also, stunt-actor Ben Jenkin was on set for the motion-capture of Proxima, Frank's devoted pet jaguar. She is one of a series of exotic South American cats rescued and trained by Frank that were all given the same name. Out of fear and later affectionately, MacGregor nicknames her "Murder Cat".
References to the ride Frank's puns are derived from the skipper's lines on the original theme park ride. Lily's personality is inspired by Indiana Jones. The boat is named after Mama Killa. The cockatoo — whose real name is "Lover Girl" — is named after the singing bird "Rosita" at Disneyland's Enchanted Tiki Room. The film has several elements referencing Dr. Albert Falls, a fictional character at Disneyland who has discovered Schweitzer Falls and has founded the Jungle Navigation Company.
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 to take place sometime in 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 on as producers.