My “Anaconda” Don’t Want None Unless You Got Originality, Hun
At the risk of sounding like an utterly broken-beyond-belief record, the prevalence of remakes and reboots in Hollywood has reached an exhausting level. Sony’s remake/reboot/reimagining of 1997’s Anaconda, also named Anaconda, wants to be a comedic skewering of the current state of affairs in the industry, but the final product is nowhere near that. It’s one of the worst examples of recycled intellectual property, and while that may sound harsh, it ls warranted. As someone who doesn’t have nostalgia for the original Anaconda, the caliber of this new film doesn’t stir a feeling of disappointment or missed expectations. It’s not as complex as that. 2025’s Anaconda is hollow, a piece of filmmaking devoid of the passion it claims is at the center of its characters.
Once upon a time, as teenagers, Doug (Jack Black) and Griff (Paul Rudd) dreamed of moving to Los Angeles to become filmmakers. Griff would be the actor, and Doug, the director and writer. When the time came, only Griff made the move, while Doug stayed in their hometown of Buffalo. After a few decades, all Griff has to show for his time in LA are a few episodes of a show called SWAT. Doug has become a wedding videographer. Both clearly wish they could recapture the creative enthusiasm of their youth, but they’re stuck in a place they don’t want to be. That is until an idea comes to Griff: he, Doug, and their two childhood friends, Claire (Thandiwe Newton) and Kenny (Steve Zahn), should remake Anaconda. The four drop everything and head to the Amazon for a shot at feeling young again and to make the movie that will change their lives.
courtesy of Sony
It’s tough to witness a comedy in a silent theater. Only a few chuckles could be heard, and that’s rough for something that’s supposed to be funny. Many of the jokes are about how all the movies nowadays have important themes. Where the snake might not just be a snake, but instead is a metaphorical stand-in for generational trauma. That’s an idea Griff and Doug have as they spitball ideas for their take on Anaconda. It’s a weird choice of theme, given that many recent horror films about generational trauma come from marginalized filmmakers. The biggest problem initially faced by Griff and Doug is that they’re not famous like they thought they’d be. This is supposed to be a feel-good film about chasing your dreams, but it’s comically easy for them to do the thing they want to do.
The strife isn’t in the hijinks required to get the money to make the movie or in juggling their jobs with a packed shooting schedule. It’s the snakes and gold thieves in the Amazon. The reason Griff’s Hollywood career isn’t what he wants it to be isn’t because he’s a good actor who’s consistently overlooked. It’s because he gets one line on a TV show and shows up on set like he’s number one on the call sheet. Doug finds his wedding videographer job mind-numbingly boring, but he isn’t trying to make films in his spare time. He’s got an insanely supportive wife (Ione Skye) who, in her maybe four lines in the film, encourages Doug every chance she gets. It’s difficult to want to root for these supposed underdogs when they both have the means to make their dreams come true from the start.
This is supposed to be a love letter to the “run-and-gun” style of filmmaking, but there’s no real reflection of what it takes to make an indie movie today. If we’ve reached a point where remakes/reboots/reimagings are unavoidable, we should at least use these well-known IPs to give young, hungry filmmakers a chance to genuinely make something new. On paper, this version of Anaconda has the potential to be really cool. We should be taking audience expectations and breaking them when it comes to recycling old films and concepts. Look at what indie filmmakers like Fede Álvarez and Lee Isaac Chung were able to do with the Alien and Twister franchises, respectively. They took the foundations of beloved, well-known works and added their own styles into them. Anaconda could have been included in that conversation, but instead it’s too much like a big studio poking fun at itself while doing the exact thing it attempts to make light of.
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