Character breakdowns for Disney’s Jungle Cruise reveal Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt’s roles, along with more details about the adventure movie’s supernatural story elements. The project is of course based on the Disney theme park attraction of the same name, famous for its old-school animatronic animals and pun-loving tour guides. Disney’s success with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies spurned the company to start developing more films based on its park rides, but their efforts have only given rise to Brad Bird’s expensive flop Tomorrowland in recent years (and even that movie had little to do with the actual Disney park land).
Once a buddy adventure featuring Woody the Cowboy and Buzz Lightyear’s real life counterparts Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, Jungle Cruise is its current form is another addition to The Rock’s ever growing “brand”. Jaume Collet-Serra of The Shallows and Liam Neeson action movie fame is calling the shots, with Oscar-nominated Logan writer Michael Green having penned the most recent script draft. Now, we have a better idea of what to expect from this eclectic, yet otherwise promising combination of talent.
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That Hashtag Show has acquired breakdowns for Johnson and Blunt’s roles in Jungle Cruise; respectively, Frank aka. Francisco and Lily Houghton. The former is described as being “a witty riverboat captain cursed with immortality” who accompanies Lily on her river based expedition. The latter is described as being a “spunky scientist” who is searching for the Tree of Life: a mystical tree that supposedly has magical curing powers.
Although the original Jungle Cruise ride has no such fantasy element, the movie version is taking a leaf from the Indiana Jones playbook and giving its protagonists a supernatural MacGuffin to pursue. The Pirates of the Caribbean films similarly added supernatural element to the original ride’s premise, eventually making them a core component of their ever growing mythology. That Hashtag Show reports that the Tree of Life will also be an important part of Lily’s backstory, as her search for the tree is partly inspired by her brother’s death by way of infectious disease.
That Hashtag Show doesn’t specify the film’s time period but Johnson has said in the past that Jungle Cruise takes place in the 1920s, and these new details support that claim. With the Pirates movies having grown increasingly slapstick-friendly and over the top since Gore Verbinski’s original trilogy, Jungle Cruise sounds like an attempt by Disney to recapture the relatively darker adventure vibe that helped make Pirates a box office success in the first place. Between that and Johnson coming off Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle‘s record-breaking run, Jungle Cruise may yet give the Mouse House the hit theme park adaptation it’s been searching for.
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Jungle Cruise is slated to begin production this May. We will let you know when it gains an official theatrical release date.
Source: That Hashtag Show
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