Disney has had more misses than hits when it comes to the various films it has made based on its popular theme park attractions. The studio’s second attempt at a Haunted Mansion movie flopped like the first despite getting generally better reviews. However, there has been one potential bright spot, as Disney’s Jungle Cruise movie was at least enough of a success to receive a greenlight for a sequel. Unfortunately, according to stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, that sequel isn’t happening after all.
In a conversation with EW, Johnson and Blunt, who currently co-star in The Smashing Machine, were asked about Jungle Cruise 2, which we’d heard nothing about recently. Both stars apparently gave the same answer, saying simply…
I don’t think so.
The Jungle Cruise didn’t have particularly barn-burning box office performance, but that was at least in part due to the film being released in the summer of 2021, as theaters were still in the midst of pandemic restrictions. The movie had been delayed a full 12 months from its original 2020 release date since all domestic theaters were closed at the time.
Jungle Cruise was released as one of the Premier Access films, which gave those with a Disney+ subscription the ability to watch it at home at the same time the movie was in theaters, though with an added price tag. The announcement of a sequel seemed to indicate that between the two releases, the movie had done well enough to warrant another try.
According to Dwayne Johnson, it was the changes at the top of Disney that appear to have sunk Jungle Cruise 2. The sequel was approved under Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who was ultimately replaced by a returning Bob Iger at the end of 2022. Iger made a lot of changes, undoing some of Chapek’s most significant contributions, and it sounds like this movie may have been part of that. Johnson said…
I think when Disney came under new leadership, they just shifted coming out of COVID. COVID shifted our business in a lot of ways. I think they looked at that property and thought, we did it once, not sure if we should revisit it again. Despite whether or not our chemistry was great.
When I interviewed Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt for the original Jungle Cruise, I asked them both about the potential of seeing Jungle Cruise as a franchise, and both seemed quite happy with the idea. Blunt specifically said she’d love to make more of them because she had so much fun making the first one, her lack of excitement for puns notwithstanding. However, it seems that desire has passed, as Blunt added…
They did not want to set sail again, and that’s fine.
As CinemaBlend’s theme park expert, I always love to see the attempt to turn attractions into movies, though I’ll be the first to agree they don’t always work. I enjoyed the first Jungle Cruise and had certainly been interested in seeing another. This makes me a little bummed to hear that the sequel will never happen.
That’s not to say there won’t be other movies based on Disney theme park rides down the road. Scarlett Johansson has continued to confirm that active development on a Tower of Terror movie is happening, though that film does appear to be taking some time. There were also plans in the past for a movie based on Space Mountain and a Big Thunder Mountain Railroad film as well, though not much has been said about those films in recent years, and one wonders if they might have suffered the same fate as Jungle Cruise 2.
