The year was 2022. Despite the fact movie theaters had yet to see a massive box office resurgence at this point, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt’s Jungle Cruise managed to cross the $100 million mark. It seemed like it would all be smooth sailing from there. A sequel was reportedly coming down the pipeline, and Disney was ready to make another of its famous rides into a franchise. Then it all fell apart.

Four years have passed since Jungle Cruise was released into theaters, and The Rock was recently asked about his movie based on the popular Disney attraction. He said at D23 he really felt the movie got “kicked around by Covid,” which is fair and was a big concern at the time. In fact, he said he’d love the opportunity to get back to sequel talks again. I’m here for it, but I think there would 100% need to be a change.

Emily Blunt And Dwayne Johnson Don’t Work As Love Interests In This Franchise

Johnson and Blunt are hilarious together. They have great timing when it comes to comedy on set, and I can see why casting directors thought they were suited for the storyline in The Jungle Cruise. To me though, the romance in the movie is really the one thing that just doesn't work. The kiss toward the end of the movie is one of the most unromantic in history, and Emily Blunt herself joked about it.

I honestly think the movie would have been better off with the same three leads --Johnson, Blunt and Jack Whitehall -- without the romantic pairing.

Since we got the pairing no one wanted in the first movie, how refreshing would it be if the sequel set them up as exes now who had to work together again? Then, the second movie wouldn't have to be some ham-fisted attempt at a romantic + action-adventure + comedy a second time, and could focus on what makes the movie great: the characters' rapport. They do well with the tension part. The verbal sparring is spot-on, and they can absolutely carry a fun movie. I want to see more. I just really want this tweak.

I know The Rock and Emily Blunt are fine working together because they tried again in Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine. In that movie, Johnson played Mark Kerr, and Blunt played Mark’s girlfriend Dawn Staples. Again, they crushed a lot of dramatic and tense scenes, and all of their interview press runs have been delightful, but they just seem like such great pals.

So, I guess all I’m saying is, I am fully on board with The Jungle Cruise 2. I do actually think the first movie didn’t get a fair box office shake due to circumstances outside of its control, and I think The Rock and Emily Blunt work well together. I would just rather have them trolling each other than falling lovingly into each others’ arms. Is that too much to ask of a sequel?

OK Disney, the ball’s in your court now.

I’m not going to pretend like Dwayne Johnson’s 2021 film Jungle Cruise is the best film the man's ever done. Movies about Disney rides in general don't have the best reputation, but I do think in this case the premise is really fun, and it could be even more fun in a sequel. While the movie, which you can watch with a Disney+ subscription, keeps the vibe of the beloved ride at Disneyland that it’s based on, it missed the mark in other ways that I'd love to see corrected.

So, I was interested when Dwayne Johnson was out here amping up the potential movie this weekend

A Sequel Faces Strong Currents Against It

While speaking at D23, Johnson explained why Jungle Cruise didn’t exactly face calm waters. The movie, like others around that time, was released simultaneously in theaters and on Disney’s VOD service, and it did reasonably well, but it certainly wasn’t a massive hit. For a movie based on such a popular ride at their parks, and one with a relatively large budget, Disney must have been very disappointed. I think, unfortunately, that played a big role in canceling the planned sequel to the movie.

Still, Johnson would love to see that sequel revived. He told EW:

I’m all in here. I, like Johnson, believe that there is real potential for a future movie. Even though the original walked through a lot of the quirks that make the ride so special (like pointing out the backside of water), the sky is the limit on a subject like a boat cruise up a river. A cartoon-y version of Indiana Jones, if you will. (And I mean that in the best way.)

Johnson and Blunt are great in the uneven original, but there is a ton of DNA there that could produce a really fun movie. Johnson believes that it didn't really get a chance, saying:

Truthfully, now that a lot of those beloved quirks are out of the way–because let's be honest, sometimes what works on a ride doesn't work for a movie–there are a lot of directions the plot could go in. I don't necessarily need recreating all the parts of the ride, but I do want it keeping that vibe alive.

The currents pushing back a potential Jungle Cruise 2 are strong, no question. Right now it feels like the property is up a creek without a paddle, but I really hope that Disney doesn’t give up on it, and if the opportunity arises and Johnson and Blunt are on board, I trust they could make something special. It is, after all, as classic Disney as it gets. Meanwhile, Johnson's next upcoming movie is sort of in the same vein, as Jumanji: Open World hits the 2026 movie schedule on Christmas Day.

As far as early jobs on the resume go, a job at Disneyland sounds like it’d be a pretty sweet one. Unless you're Will Ferrell, in which case you only last for a day. I just learned Will Ferrell once got hired to work at the Happiest Place on Earth, but he backed out of it pretty quickly. Hijinks definitely were involved.

Before Will Ferrell found his big break as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, the comedian and actor grew up in Orange County, California. One of his first jobs was technically at Disneyland, but the gig didn’t last very long. He recently revealed all this to Amy Poehler, including what lured him away.

It’s true. Not every job title at Disneyland is as exciting as the place itself. While Josh Gad might get a celebrity pass to work rides, Mr. Ferrell was not the comedian we know today at that time. He genuinely seems unenthusiastic about ticket taking, and waiting, and I do get it. That’s not even inside the park!

Since he’d just been offered another job at a surf shop in Newport Beach his friend was managing, he decided to suddenly quit. Here’s where the story really gets good, and definitely highlights the environment Ferrell grew up in that led him to be so funny.

Will Ferrell oozes confidence these days, but his anecdote on Good Hang With Amy Poehler shows that he didn’t always have nerves of steel. What a way to quit Disneyland!

One can’t help but giggle at the story. Imagine being the person that was on the other side of the line (perhaps reading this), and realizing it was THE Will Ferrell! How funny.

Will Ferrell might have quit Disneyland before he even started, but fellow SNL alum Steve Martin definitely didn’t. The comedy icon worked at Disneyland at the age of 10 after biking over to the theme park and asking for work there. Someone allowed him to sell guidebooks there, and Martin continued to work for the Mouse for eight years. The actor started working at the park’s magic shop at 15, which gave him an avenue to perform before later heading to 30 Rock.

Ultimately Will Ferrell left his life in Orange County for Los Angeles to join the city’s local The Groundlings improv group. It was there where he was encouraged to try out for SNL producer Lorne Michaels. Ferrell was on the sketch show for seven years before launching a successful movie career. And to think, if he'd spent those seven years at Disneyland, he still probably wouldn't be manning The Jungle Cruise.

His latest project is a new series called The Hawk, which is dropping this week for those with a Netflix subscription.

People talk about how The Rock behaves in ways that are larger-than-life pretty often, and I’m not just talking about his physical size. (Though he has slimmed down recently, much to Emily Blunt’s amusement.) We’re also talking about the magnitude of his actions, which have included sending Simone Biles sweet care packages or the viral moment he gave his stunt double a truck. Apparently, this happened on the set of Jungle Cruise, and his co-star just told a really funny story about not being able to compete.

Jack Whitehall just opened up about what it was like being on set with Dwayne Johnson. In particularly her brought up a story that already went viral about how the Rock bought his stunt double a truck on set, only this time we got it from Whitehall’s perspective, with the actor explaining how he “insane” moment played out to VT.

Dwayne Johnson had shared the video of him giving Tanoi Reed a truck while on set previously. At the time he was filming Jungle Cruise, and people thought the gift had come as part of his work on that production, which now seems to be accurate. He’d noted in the post that his stunt double had sacrificed a lot over the years, including things like “breaking bones” and “tearing ligaments” all in the name of making the best movie possible. Take a look.

Meanwhile, Jack Whitehall’s been in some big budget movies like Clifford The Big Red Dog and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, but he’s not an a-lister with decades of million dollar roles under his belt and an alleged net worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Needless to say, he couldn’t exactly compete with Dwayne Johnson on set, and his funny story about what happened next really resonates with me.

I can just imagine Whitehall springing for the fancy candle (though probably not of the Goop variety) and thinking he’d absolutely smashed it, only to find out his a-lister co-star had not only knocked it out of the park, he’d done so at about 400X the rate. At least the funny young actor can laugh about it later.

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…

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…

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…

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.

Whether it’s movies like Heat bringing massive stars together to create one of the best ‘90s movies, all-time great romantic comedies allowing America’s sweethearts to show off in front of adoring fans, or legendary sci-fi flicks showcasing the skills of up-and-comers and established stars, there have been a lot of movies that brought two heavyweight actors together.

Below are 32 such movies that brought such an incredible one-two punch, we still can’t believe they actually happened. But luckily, these castings did happen and they were pulled off really, really well.

Heat (Robert De Niro & Al Pacino)

Though they were technically both in The Godfather Part II, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino wouldn’t share a scene until more than 20 years later in Heat. Sure, their shared time on screen was minimal (this was a cat-and-mouse game, you know), but this Michael Mann epic was made all the better with these two heavyweights together at last.

Escape Plan (Sylvester Stallone & Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger had one of the biggest rivalries in Hollywood throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s as they competed for box office supremacy with all kinds of action movies. Well, they finally started working together in the 2010s with a series of movies that includes Escape Plan. Though The Expendables came first, that was more of an ensemble affair and Schwarzenegger was relegated to a brief cameo.

Collateral (Jamie Foxx & Tom Cruise)

When it comes to movies set in Los Angeles, few are as cool or thrilling as Collateral. Michael Mann’s 2004 thriller stars Jamie Foxx (just months before he won an Oscar) and Tom Cruise (one of his most menacing performances) as a cab driver and assassin, respectively, on a night neither will forget.

Fast Five (Vin Diesel & Dwayne Johnson)

Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson would go on to have one of the strangest Hollywood feuds in the years that followed, but the two Hollywood heavyweights first came together for Fast Five in 2011. A movie that forever changed the course of the Fast & Furious franchise, this wild heist adventure saw the two beefed-up and bald actors go at it in one of the series’ best fights.

You've Got Mail (Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan)

While it is true that You’ve Got Mail was the pair’s third movie together, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan weren’t really the massive stars they were when making Joe Versus the Volcano and Sleepless in Seattle. Hanks had earned two Oscars and Ryan had led several more rom-coms between their early films and this 1998 romantic comedy.

Waiting To Exhale (Angela Bassett & Whitney Houston)

Waiting to Exhale has a great cast from top to bottom (as well as a great original song), but it was wild seeing Angela Bassett and Whitney Houston share the screen in this iconic 1995 dramedy about a group of women navigating love, life, and friendship with each other by their sides.

A Few Good Men (Tom Cruise & Jack Nicholson)

Rob Reiner’s A Few Good Men has a cast that includes Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr., and so much more. But then you have Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson at the top of the list. Though they don’t share the screen for all that long, they were both part of the now iconic “You can’t handle the truth” courtroom scene, which has gone on to become one of the most universally known quotes of all time.

True Romance (Dennis Hopper & Christopher Walken)

The “Sicilian Scene” from True Romance will forever be remembered as one of the greatest cinematic moments of the 1990s, and that’s thanks to Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken (two absolute legends) giving it their all. Yeah, Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are the core of Tony Scott’s 1993 romantic crime drama, but these two heavyweights stole the show.

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (Paul Newman & Robert Redford)

Paul Newman and Robert Redford could very well be one of the best on-screen pairings in Hollywood history. While The Sting is great and all, we have to talk about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid bringing these two legends together. From the start of the flick to that iconic ending (you know what we’re talking about), this movie is in a league of its own.

The Departed (Leonardo DiCaprio & Jack Nicholson)

Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, one of the best 2000s movies, has one of the director’s best group of actors, which is saying something. The two megastars at the top of the list? Well, none other than Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson, who are outrageously great together. No wonder this won Best Picture.

Bad Boys (Will Smith & Martin Lawrence)

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do when Will Smith and Martin Lawrence come for you? Well, moviegoers found out with the 1995 release of Bad Boys, a landmark buddy cop movie starring two of the biggest names on the planet at the time. Still on the rise, Smith and Lawrence became even bigger stars after his great Michael Bay movie came out.

Thelma & Louise (Susan Sarandon & Geena Davis)

Thelma & Louise is one of those movies that never gets old, no matter how many times you watch it. And while we would love to give Ridley Scott all the credit, or say Brad Pitt’s small part made a difference, let’s be real and acknowledge the work of Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis as two on-the-run women with nothing but the open road (and open sky) ahead of them.

Marriage Story (Scarlet Johansson & Adam Driver)

Marriage Story brought together Scarlet Johansson and Adam Driver together in 2019, the same year they starred in box office juggernauts Avengers: Endgame and Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker, respectively. And if we’re being honest, this Netflix original was actually the best of those three films.

Lethal Weapon (Mel Gibson & Danny Glover)

Lethal Weapon, the first in a franchise of legendary buddy cop movies, brought together Mel Gibson and Danny Glover for an outrageously funny and action-packed crime story about two cops from different walks of life trying to solve a case (and not kill one another). Riggs and Murtaugh are still one of the best duos, even after all these years.

Life (Eddie Murphy & Martin Lawrence)

Though both appeared in Boomerang earlier in the decade, Martin Lawrence was a star on the same level as Eddie Murphy when they teamed up for Life. This rude, crude, and incredible 1998 comedy about two convicts making the most out of life sentences is full of hilarious and unforgettable moments.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Harrison Ford & Sean Connery)

There are some out there who think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the best of the franchise, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. With Sean Connery coming on to play Harrison Ford’s on-screen dad, this 1989 adventure film was bigger, grander, and more epic than anything that came before it in this beloved franchise.

The Mexican (Julia Roberts & Brad Pitt)

Gore Verbinski’s The Mexican may not be the best movie or even the most successful to feature Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, but these two were at or near the peak of their fame when this 2001 crime film was released. Coming out nine months before they shared the screen in Ocean’s Eleven, this oft-forgotten romance film brought the pair together.

Bruce Almighty (Jim Carrey & Morgan Freeman)

After both became two of the biggest stars of ‘90s Hollywood, Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman shared the screen in 2003’s Bruce Almighty, with the latter playing God (can you imagine anyone else playing the divine being?). Though they didn’t have all that much time together, these two legends made the most of it to create some utterly hilarious moments.

Night At The Museum (Ben Stiller & Robin Williams)

The Night at the Museum movies have all kinds of great pairings, but the original did it best with Ben Stiller as a lowly nighttime security guard and the late Robin Williams as a wax figure of a former United States President that comes to life at night. We could watch these two riff until the sun comes up, and luckily that’s what happened in two subsequent sequels.

Men In Black (Will Smith & Tommy Lee Jones)

Here comes the Men in Black! This 1997 comedy, which came out a few years into Will Smith’s unprecedented run at the box office, saw the Fresh Prince share the screen with Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones. The pair of secret agents tasked with protecting Earth from extraterrestrial threats have since become one of the best onscreen duos and two characters that’ll never get old.

The Fugitive (Harrison Ford & Tommy Lee Jones)

Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones came together for one of the best 1993 movies when they shared the screen in The Fugitive. This great movie based on a classic TV show saw Ford’s Dr. Richard Kimble on the run after being falsely convicted of murdering his wife with Jones Samuel Gerard leading a team of U.S. Marshals to find him.

Mamma Mia! (Meryl Streep & Pierce Brosnan)

Mamma Mia! had great songs, unforgettable moments, and one of the best casts of the 2000s. While we could talk about Stellan Skarsgård, or Amanda Seyfried, or even Colin Firth, we have to point out that this Abba-influenced musical brought Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan together on screen, and it was marvelous.

The Nice Guys (Russell Crowe & Ryan Gosling)

Shane Black gave the world one of the great modern buddy crime flicks in 2016 with the release of The Nice Guys. Featuring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling as a pair of down-on-their-luck guys tasked with solving a mystery, this throwback was so much fun. It’s a shame we never got a sequel.

Ocean's Eleven (George Clooney & Brad Pitt)

The ensemble cast from Ocean’s Eleven has talent up and down the roster and has some heavyweights from multiple generations of Hollywood. But let’s be real, this movie brought George Clooney and Brad Pitt together, a relationship that has given us nearly a half-dozen other great films in the 24 years since its release.

La La Land (Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone)

The third time’s the charm, right? Well, that was the case for Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, who were electric in Damien Chazelle’s La La Land. Taking on the roles of two young lovers forced to decide between following their dreams and having a great relationship, these two sing, dance, and shine throughout this beloved musical.

Independence Day (Will Smith & Jeff Goldblum)

Years before Jeff Goldblum became one of social media’s favorite (and strangest) stars, he was something of a Hollywood leading man. Between his first two stints as Dr. Ian Malcolm in the Jurassic Park franchise, Goldblum shared the screen with Will Smith in Independence Day, aka, one of the highest-grossing films of 1996. These two, who were on top of their game, became an unlikely duo.

Batman Returns (Michael Keaton & Danny DeVito)

Michael Keaton, as Batman, and Danny DeVito, as the Penguin, in 1992’s Batman Returns, was one of the oddest pairings of the ‘90s. But don’t let this make you think it didn’t work, as these two Hollywood heavyweights were oddly great together in Tim Burton’s second and final comic book movie set in Gotham.

How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days (Kate Hudson & Matthew McConaughey)

Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson were two of the biggest stars on the planet when they teamed up in 2003 for How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. This wildly funny rom-com, which preceded their Fool’s Gold adventure comedy by five years, further helped both actors rise through the ranks of Hollywood.

Jungle Cruise (Emily Blunt & Dwayne Johnson)

It’s crazy we never got a movie starring Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson before 2021’s Jungle Cruise, but we’re glad these two electric stars shared the screen. One of the best movies based on a Disney attraction, this throwback adventure film had action, peril, humor, and some romance before it was all said and done.

Central Intelligence (Dwayne Johnson & Kevin Hart)

Love them or hate them, there’s no denying Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart’s on-screen chemistry. Shortly before they starred in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, these two shared the screen in Central Intelligence. A good movie? No, not really, but these two had so much fun together.

Face/Off (John Travolta & Nicolas Cage)

John Travolta and Nicolas Cage are two of the most unforgettable actors (for better or worse) in the history of Hollywood, and they crossed paths and swapped faces in John Woo’s Face/Off. This absurdly awesome action flick about an FBI agent and global terrorist swapping faces is as ridiculous as it sounds.

Righteous Kill (Robert De Niro & Al Pacino)

Those who were mad about Robert De Niro and Al Pacino never having a face-to-face interaction (at least on screen) in Heat were in for some good news when Righteous Kill hit the big screen in 2008. Is it a great movie? No, not really. But hey, it has two of the biggest actors of all time sharing scene after scene.

Disney Parks are an incredibly popular place to go, but unfortunately, not all of us can visit them whenever we wish. For those of us who might need a quick infusion of pixie dust to feel like we’re in the parks, livestreaming from Disneyland and Walt Disney World has become a popular pastime and even a potential business for some on YouTube and other platforms. However, it looks like the happiest place on Earth may be trying to crack down on the process, though at least they’re being nice about it.

A Disneyland fan recently posted on the r/Disneyland subreddit, that after doing a live stream from the World Famous Jungle Cruise, they were quietly presented with a note that asked them to please stop streaming from the attraction, in the most Jungle Cruise way possible.

While this seems to be a unique situation, we’re not hearing about widespread reactions to livestreamers this way. It certainly looks like Disneyland is taking steps to deal with the practice, which most of the time isn’t an issue, but it can be incredibly annoying when it’s done in a way that bothers everybody else.

Many of the best Disneyland attractions put parties in their own ride vehicles, and they are full of music and dialogue of their own, so a livestreamer wouldn’t be too distracting for other riders. Something like the Jungle Cruise is a bit different since a group of guests ride together, and the narration and Skipper's bad jokes are the main focal point. Although the OP says they weren’t speaking while streaming, so it’s unclear what caused this reaction.

Whatever happened, I don’t hate it. Livestreaming has become incredibly popular in theme parks. Theme Park YouTube is an industry in itself, and many make their living presenting content inside the parks. Most of the time it’s no big deal, but it can be incredibly frustrating when your own park experience is upset by somebody who is narrating the experience in your ear or getting in the way of your view of a parade to get the “perfect shot.” It's also resulted in people getting banned from Disney World, as one TikTok star was trespassed after posting videos in the park in places he should not have been.

Disney World recently cracked down on third-party tour guides, banning many of them from the parks because Disney Parks’ rules prevent guests from making money inside the parks. There’s an argument to be made that many livestreamers are doing the same thing. The videos they are producing are being monetized, and for many of the most successful, this has become their actual job.

There’s an argument that many of the livestreamers promote Disney Parks with their content, and that may be true to a degree. But if it causes a problem for the guests who have already paid money, it’s probably not worth it. We'll be keeping an eye on this to see if it continues.

Josh Gad loves Disney as much as your average Disney Adult. The man is the voice of Olaf, the live-action Le Fou, and even the narrator of a Disney+ animal show. Gad is a certified Disney Legend, so it’s know wonder that when he arrives at Disneyland he’s just allowed to narrate attractions, whether or not those attractions actually have narrators. 

Josh Gad Has Now Narrated His Second Disneyland Attraction

Previously Josh Gad took a spin as a Jungle Cruise skipper, providing his own versions of the hilarious Jungle Cruise puns as only the World Famous Jungle Cruise skippers can do. The video of that from Disney Parks went viral, so clearly there was a lot of interest in it. This would seem to be why Gad has returned to the Happiest Place on Earth, and this time on TikTok he’s been given the task of narrating the Disneyland Railroad. There normally isn’t a hilarious running commentary on this ride, but perhaps, after seeing Josh Gad do it, there should be.  

Fans clearly love to see Josh Gad narrate Disneyland rides. More than one comment calls the actor a “national treasure” and many are hoping that this second narration is part of a new running gag that will see Gad narrate more rides at Disneyland or do other cast member jobs. It’s certainly not a terrible idea.

Considering that we know how well Josh Gad can sing, I think letting him join the Dapper Dans would be amazing. Alternatively, he could just be the funniest churro seller you ever saw. But if we’re going to let Josh Gad narrate more Disneyland rides there’s one that just needs to happen.

Make Josh Gad The Ghost Host On The Haunted Mansion 

While I’m pretty sure that Josh Gad would make any Disneyland ride more fun, adding him as a narrator would be difficult for a lot of rides, that are either too short, too fast, or would interfere with the attraction itself if a narrator was added, but there’s one place adding a narrator would be easy, the Haunted Mansion.

The Haunted Mansion is already a guided tour, with the Ghost Host taking you through the experience as the disembodied voice talks you through the Omnimover ride. It would be the easiest thing in the world to let Josh Gad record his own version and to surprise guests on the best Disneyland attraction when they hear the voice of Olaf and not Paul Frees.

I know a lot of purists would hate this idea, but I’m not saying this is something that should be done long-term. As with the other Josh Gad narrations, where a handful of guests got to experience this in reality, and the rest of us got to see the highlights, cameras can catch the reactions of guests surprised to hear Josh Gad, and after it’s done for a few people, things can go back to business as usual. 

Of course, right now Josh Gad can't narrate the Haunted Mansion as the attraction is closed at Disneyland due to a massive external queue redesign. The Disneyland Railroad Josh Gad was on also didn't make a stop at New Orleans Square for the same reason. At this point, we don't know when the Haunted Mansion could reopen. Maybe, once all the work in that area is done, Gad can return for his next park narration. 

If you’ve been hoping to see recent Oscar-nominee Emily Blunt and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson pair up on screen again, we now know that your hopes will be fulfilled soon, as the duo is planning to film the upcoming A24 movie, The Smashing Machine in the near future (which led Johnson to post a sweet comment for Blunt). However, that film is a far different one from the comedic action adventure that originally brought them together, 2021’s Disney hit, Jungle Cruise. While a sequel to that popular movie was announced a little over a month after its release, we’ve heard very little about it for years. Now, The Rock has shared the latest news on the potential sequel.

What Did The Rock Say About Possibly Working With Emily Blunt For Jungle Cruise 2?

While fans had to wait longer than expected for the Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt-starring film based on an ever-popular Disney theme park ride, once it finally hit theaters movie-goers ate up the thrilling, banter-filled chemistry that the actors brought to the comedy as Captain Frank Wolff and Dr. Lily Houghton. Though the leads will be back on screen in relatively short order, it won’t be to reprise their beloved characters in Jungle Cruise 2, but The Rock gave everyone an update when speaking with Variety recently, noting:

Alright, I know what you’re thinking, because that is hardly the enthusiastic response that those who adored the first film were likely hoping for. But, I happen to think that it still sets us up for some good news down the line, as the interest from the wrestler turned actor is there, and it’s also clear from his next project with The Fall Guy star that he enjoys working with her.

The reality of the movie business is that even if everyone involved wants something to happen, if all the (dozens if not hundreds of) pieces don’t fall into place quickly it becomes a real waiting game, especially because major stars like Johnson and Blunt easily fill their schedules up very quickly.

Producer Hiram Garcia revealed when the sequel was announced that the team who worked on the first movie was already hard at work “cracking the story” for the new film and noted that the stars had “brilliant ideas” about what they wanted to see next from their characters. He also said that they all have “much bigger plans” for JC2 that will see “our heroes covering more territory” than just the Amazon and London, and we’ll get to see how Frank and Lily’s relationship develops.

As we hope for more solid updates on Jungle Cruise 2, whenever they may finally come, at least we know we’ll get to see Johnson and Blunt star together in The Smashing Machine sooner rather than later.

The SAG-AFTRA actors strike might be stalling any new acting deals with studios for the moment, but Jungle Cruise stars Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson are reportedly working behind the scenes as producers to bring together their next collaboration, Kate Warne. For some time, the movie based on the United States’ first female detective has been in the works with both Blunt and Johnson, but now yet another member of the Jungle Cruise crew has joined the movie. 

Jaume Collet-Serra directed 2021’s Jungle Cruise, and is now reportedly on board to helm the Kate Warne movie for Amazon Studios, per Deadline. Collet-Serra, who was also the director behind Black Adam, The Shallows, Non-Stop, and Orphan, will work alongside both Blunt and Johnson’s production companies, which are respectively called Ledburry Productions and Seven Bucks, to bring the detective biopic to life on screen. 

Blunt is expected to star as Kate Warne, but the report claims that conversations around casting will not kick off until the SAG-AFTRA actors strike concludes. Kate Warne reportedly walked into the Pinkerton Detective Agency at the age of 23 and requested a job as a detective back in 1856. After convincing the agency of her talents, she became part of the agency and solved numerous cases, including uncovering the 1861 Baltimore Plot against President-elect Abraham Lincoln and providing intelligence during the American Civil War. 

Considering how amazing Kate Warne sounds like she was, it’s no wonder Emily Blunt may play her and her Jungle Cruise collaborators are on board. Blunt recently worked with Amazon Studios on her mini series The English along with starring in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Blunt is also set to star in another of 2023 new movie releases, Netflix’s Pain Hustlers with Chris Evans. She has also completed production on the action movie The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling and is expected to star in a second Jungle Cruise movie with Dwayne Johnson. 

The Jungle Cruise team must have really enjoyed each other’s company in between Kate Warne, Jungle Cruise 2, and another movie called Ball And Chain. Blunt and Johnson are also reportedly expected to star together in Ball And Chain, which would have them playing a married couple who are contemplating divorce when a mysterious force gives them both super powers. 

Jaume Collet-Serra has certainly been a go-to director for Johnson. The filmmaker helmed his long-awaited debut in the DCEU with Black Adam along with Jungle Cruise. While Black Adam doesn't have a future in light of Warner Bros.’ plans to reboot the cinematic universe, the superhero movie did debut at No.1 in its opening weekend. Jungle Cruise also had a modest box office performance, but came out at a time when Disney also released it on Disney+ for a price at the same time it went theatrical. 

You can stay up to date on upcoming films starring Dwayne Johnson and check out our interviews with Johnson and Blunt here on CinemaBlend. 

Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise is one of its most iconic attractions. It was there on that July day in 1955 when the park opened, and it’s still there today. Many might be of the opinion that barring the occasional refurbishment and update the Jungle Cruise has received, the ride is largely the same as it was when it first opened, but that’s not actually true. While the basic concept, of floating down the exotic rivers of the world has remained unchanged, the tone of the Jungle Cruise is very different now than it was at the beginning.

Today, people know Jungle Cruise as the funny ride where Cast Member Skippers fire puns and one-liners off at guests one after the other. They might not all be winners, some are groan-worthy, but jokes and the Jungle Cruise have been inseparable for decades. That said, they weren’t always part of the ride. The Jungle Cruise was originally presented as a serious ride with the presentation closer to that of a documentary than a Disney cartoon.

Disneyland’s True Life Adventureland 

Jungle Cruise is often celebrated by fans, alongside the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, as one of the most popular Disneyland rides that have a story and concept that are entirely original, not based on a Disney movie. But in the case of Jungle Cruise, that’s not entirely accurate, as there is a Disney movie, in fact, an entire series of Disney movies, that inspired Jungle Cruise and all of Adventureland.

While lesser known today, one of Walt Disney’s first forays into live-action filmmaking was through a series of short and long-form documentary films known as the True Life Adventures. These films combine wildlife photography with some sort of fictionalized story that allowed Disney to bring his unique form of storytelling to the natural world. These were incredibly successful, netting Walt Disney nearly half of the 26 Oscars he won in his life. 

This was where the entire concept behind Disneyland’s Adventureland was born, and it was what Jungle Cruise was supposed to recreate. Walt originally wanted the Jungle Cruise to be full of actual animals, not animatronics, before it was determined that animal sleep schedules and general welfare would not be conducive to the confines of an attraction (Disney would need the massive scale of Walt Disney World in order to create Disney’s Animal Kingdom and make this particular dream of Walt’s come true.)

So while the animals would not be real, the presentation was originally designed to be just that. Skippers were originally designed to educate the riders as much as to entertain them. There was the occasional joke and the presentation wasn’t entirely stiff, but humor wasn’t the focus.

Imagineer Marc Davis Brings Humor To The Jungle Cruise 

The Jungle Cruise was a big hit when the park opened in 1955. For a theme park that wouldn’t open a roller coaster for four years, it was the E-ticket attraction before the park actually had E-ticket attractions. However, the story goes that Walt Disney overheard guests saying that they had no interest in re-riding Jungle Cruise because they’d done it before. The attraction would see incremental improvements throughout the 1950s, but it was a major overhaul in the early 1960s that had the most to do with the Jungle Cruise becoming the attraction it is today.

Marc Davis would be the man put in charge of designing the overhaul, and with it, we would see the first scenes of a distinctly comedic bent on Jungle Cruise. Walt reportedly wanted to add humor to the ride, which is specifically why Davis was chosen.

Davis was part of the Imagineering team that had been working on the nearby New Orleans Square attractions around the same period. Davis is credited as being one of the key people behind the decision to add humor to the Haunted Mansion, and he also designed several of the more lighthearted moments in Pirates of the Caribbean.

A new scene showing elephants in a bathing pool would be added in 1962. A sequence where a rhinoceros has chased several people up a tree would follow in 1963. These added a much-needed bit of humor, in Davis’ opinion, to the Jungle Cruise.  

There was never a moment when the Jungle Cruise narration transitioned overnight from serious to funny. That change appears to have happened gradually over time, seemingly due to the Cast Members themselves changing up the spiel. Having said that, the fact that the Jungle Cruise narration needed to be more humorous due to the funnier parts of the ride certainly appears to have influenced the Skippers into fashioning more jokes.

The Modern Jungle Cruise

Jungle Cruise Cast Members aren't generally seen as "performers" in the way that those singing and dancing on stage are, but for a few minutes at a time, the spotlight is certainly on them. The Skippers' comedy has become so well known that's an oft-repeated myth that Steve Martin got his start in comedy performing as a Skipper. It's not actually true, as Martin worked in the magic shop.

Today, there are so many jokes that it’s impossible to hear them all in one trip, giving Jungle Cruise much of the re-rideability that Walt Disney wanted. Skippers are basically given a list of jokes they can use, but have the freedom within that list to say what they want, so each ride is something a little different.

The Jungle Cruise has continued to see regular updates, with the most recent Jungle Cruise refurbishment removing some of the attraction elements that haven't aged as well as others since the 1950s and '60s. We can expect changes to the ride to continue over time, but the attraction's focus as one of the more humorous parts of Disneyland seems all but assured to continue.

The jokes on Jungle Cruise are intentionally terrible, which, for many, makes them even funnier. Still, not everybody appreciates the humor. Emily Blunt apparently didn't love having to hear Dwayne Johnson deliver endless puns on the set of the Jungle Cruise movie. For others, however, the jokes are what keeps them coming back. 

The Jungle Cruise is one of Disneyland Resort's most iconic attractions. The ride was an opening day attraction at Disneyland in 1955, and while it has gone through a lot of changes over the decades (most notably becoming a lot more fun) it has always been popular among fans. It's popular enough that it spawned its own movie, and since Jungle Cruise 2 is reportedly in development, might I suggest they consider adding new Disney Legend Josh Gad because it turns out the guy knows his way around a Jungle Cruise pun.

Actor Josh Gad recently got to live out a dream by being a Jungle Cruise skipper and honestly, Disney should have hired him decades ago. In a new video from Disney Parks, Gad says he always wanted to be a skipper. And whether that's true or not, he's pretty damn good at the job, check it out.

Josh Gad would make a pretty solid Jungle Cruise skipper if that whole "professional actor and comedian" thing doesn't work out for him. He drops many of the classic Jungle Cruise puns that we know and love like he's been doing it for a long time. He even creates a couple of jokes of his own, including one that references Frozen 2, of course.

One area of the ride we don't get to see much of in the video is the new bit. Jungle Cruise was recently updated at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World and some of the attractions segments were changed. I guess Disney wants to get you to actually visit the parks to see what's new.  We do get to see him make the ride's most famous joke, revealing to the guests "the backside of water."

I feel like Josh Gad is so good at this that he needs to find an additional outlet for Jungle Cruise puns, so let's see about getting him added to the cast of the forthcoming sequel. Disney has announced that the movie version of Jungle Cruise, which starred Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, will be getting a sequel. And a sequel always needs a few new cast members. If nothing else the movie will need a villain. How about one that drops bad puns as often as Dwayne Johnson's hero?

What Jungle Cruise 2 would actually be about is anybody's guess. One assumes we'll see Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt go in search of a new treasure by traveling down another major world river. The first movie was set on the Amazon River, and the Jungle Cruise attraction, between its multiple versions around the world, is set on numerous global rivers. 

Josh Gad clearly had fun on the Jungle Cruise, and even got a free Dole Whip out of the deal. He'll be back working with Disney before too long, on Frozen 3, since we know it's on the way, but Gad does a lot of work with Disney, so maybe a Jungle Cruise movie appearance isn't out of the question.

The following contains minor SPOILERS for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Marvel Studios’ newest film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, made box office news before it even came out when it was revealed that the movie would not make it to theaters of some Middle Eastern nations, including Saudi Arabia, following the decision to not make a requested edit to the film. The edit in question was in regards to some form of LGBTQ+ content, but Disney made the choice to not release the movie at all rather than make the edit.

This is the latest move in what has been an ongoing attempt by Disney to better represent the LGBTQ+ communities. For a company that has been making films for nearly 100 years, it has been a long road to the point that we are in. That road hasn’t exactly been an easy one, but Disney has certainly come a long way from where it started.

 The Early Years 

Needless to say it has only been in recent years that characters in Disney movies were overtly seen as queer in any way, but that doesn’t mean that Disney movies were entirely devoid of characters that could be read as queer. There’s actually a significant amount of queer coding in early Disney characters. The major problem is that it’s almost all in the villains.

Characters like Captain Hook and Shere Khan use affectations that could be read as gay. Even as late as the Disney Renaissance, you had characters like Ursula, who was specifically based on drag queen Devine, making her overtly queer. Nothing was ever said or even implied about specific sexuality, but the implication was there. It's only been in the last few years that any of this has changed at all.

Disney’s “First Gay Moment” 

It would not be until 2017 that we got anything resembling an overt reference to anything other than a straight character in a movie from Disney. Having said that, it was 2017’s live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, and even Josh Gad, who was part of the moment, now admits that it really wasn’t the moment it should have been.

Gad’s LeFou uses queer coding like many of those Disney characters before him. However, in the film’s finale, when all our heroes are dancing together, we see him dancing with another man. It’s a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment, but it was there.

Background Scenes 

In 2019, we saw a strange pattern emerging where movies released by Disney would “include” gay characters, but only as set dressing. In both Toy Story 4 and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, we saw background characters who did not have names or any dialogue, but were clearly to be seen as gay. In the former movie, a classmate of Bonnie’s has two moms who take her to school and pick her up later. In the latter film, two women kiss in celebration following the defeat of The First Order.

Once again, this fell into the “slightly better than nothing” category. Of course, in the case of Star Wars, it was still nothing in some nations, as the kiss was edited out of the movie for its release in the Middle East and Singapore, though the kiss was left in for Chinese audiences. 

The Minor Mentions   

Concurrently with these background scenes that you might not have even noticed, we saw the first direct references to gay characters in some other Disney movies. These at least had the benefit of being characters who were in the center of the frame and delivering dialogue, though they were also minor characters who viewers were likely to forget about quickly.

Marvel Studio’s “first gay character” appeared in Avengers: Endgame, and was played by one of the move's directors, Joe Russo. He mentions going on a date with a man in a support group being run by Chris Evans’ Captain America. Pixar’s Onward included a police officer who pulls over the main characters, and later in the scene makes reference to her girlfriend. Disney did not edit these moments out of these films, though in both cases, it's reported Russia changed the dialogue in dubbing to remove the references.

2021 - The Year Of Actual Gay Characters In Disney Movies 

Disney still has a long way to go when it comes to LGBTQ+ representation in its films, but 2021 was at least a significant step forward as we saw three films where significant characters who were important to the stories being told were queer. The first of these was Cruella, where the title character befriends Artie, played by John McCrea. McCrea himself is gay, and while Artie’s sexual orientation is never a topic of discussion in the film, the actor believes the character is queer. The big step here is that a character like Artie in an earlier Disney movie would have been a villain, but here, he’s one of our heroes. 

Later in 2021, we saw Disney’s Jungle Cruise. In this movie, Jack Whitehall plays one of the three main protagonists of the movie, and in one scene with Dwayne Johnson, he discusses that his attractions go in a different direction. Though, perhaps predicting the future, Whitehall doesn’t say “gay.” Finally, in Marvel’s Eternals, we saw one of the titular heroes, the character of Phastos, played by Brian Tyree Henry, revealed to be gay. Eternals was banned in several nations, and Jungle Cruise did eventually open in China. That would seem to indicate the gay scene was cut, as China usually does not allow such content in the movies it releases, but I have been unable to confirm that, so it's possible the scene stayed in.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness And The Future 

That leads us to the newest movie to make the news for simply having LGBTQ content, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Following in the steps of Eternals, Marvel and Disney have made the choice to simply not release the new MCU feature in Saudi Arabia after censors in the nation requested that a few seconds of the movie be cut. We've since learned that his scene shows that the MCU’s America Chavez has two mothers. 

We also know of at least one more movie that is on the way that will contain a same-sex kiss: Pixar’s Lightyear. Interestingly, the word is that the scene was originally cut from the Chris Evans-led movie before being added back in following the aftermath in the ongoing battle between Disney and Florida over the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. 

What the future holds is anybody’s guess. Disney certainly does seem committed to continuing to include LGBTQ+ representation in its films, but many feel that what the Mouse House is doing now just isn’t enough. We don't really know if the future will see continued steps forward or simply more of the same, but CinemaBlend will pass along any other notable updates on this front.

Over the years, there have been numerous hilarious and daring romantic action comedies that combine multiple genres to create what some would describe as the perfect date movie. And, while we don’t see this as much as we used to, sometimes a movie in that category comes around and takes the world by storm. This most recently happened in March 2022 when The Lost City, a globetrotting adventure starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, became a box office champ and critical hit. 

If you were one of the millions of people who have seen the throwback adventure flick and want more, you have come to the right place, because we have put together a list of 10 movies like The Lost City that will certainly scratch an itch, make you laugh, or fall in love all over again.

Romancing The Stone (HBO Max)

Romance writer Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) finds herself in an adventure like one of her novels when she has to head into the Colombian jungle to save her sister before she is killed by a group of men seeking a priceless treasure and the map to find its location.

You can see the influence from Robert Zemeckis’ Romancing the Stone throughout The Lost City, from its story about a writer having the skills to find a missing treasure, to its over-the-top villains and dashing mercenary played by Michael Douglas. It should come as no surprise that there is boundless action, comedy, and romance throughout this classic.

Stream Romancing the Stone on HBO Max.
Rent/Buy Romancing the Stone on Amazon.

Jungle Cruise (Disney+)

Upon learning of a mythical tree that supposedly has the ability to heal injuries, cure sicknesses, and more, Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) hires steamboat captain Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) to take her into the heart of the Amazon jungle in hopes of using it to revolutionize medicine. But, she isn’t the only one searching for the Lágrimas de Cristal Tree and its boundless power.

Like The Lost City, the star-studded Disney adventure, Jungle Cruise, which is based on the popular amusement park ride of the same name, has elements of comedy, action, and romance sprinkled throughout, creating a fast-paced and enjoyable adventure. But, the jury is still out on who is the more sinister villain: Jesse Plemons’ Prince Joachim or Daniel Radcliffe’s Abigail Fairfax.

Stream Jungle Cruise on Disney+.
Rent/Buy Jungle Cruise on Amazon.

Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom (Paramount+)

Together with his trusty young sidekick and a not-about-this-life singer, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) sets off into rural India to locate a missing stone. Upon reaching the heart of the jungle, though, the daring archeologist encounters a mysterious cult whose leader has a habit of pulling out people’s hearts.

The second installment in the franchise, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the rare entry where Indy doesn’t face off with power-hungry and occult-obsessed Nazis, but instead a more mysterious (and powerful) enemy. Though without as much romance as in The Lost City, this 1984 classic has plenty of witty banter to hold you over.

Stream Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on Paramount+.
Rent/Buy Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on Amazon.

The Mummy (HBO Max)

Three millennia after being cursed to damnation in ancient Egypt, High Priest Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) is brought back from the dead, unleashing a series of curses on those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In addition to having a fun story that combines humor and action, The Mummy is anchored by dashing soldier Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) and dedicated Egyptologist Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz), who are about as opposite as can be, but still eventually make romance work.

Stream The Mummy on HBO Max.
Rent/Buy The Mummy on Amazon.

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (Starz)

After magically becoming trapped in an old video game, four high school students are transformed into the game’s characters whose appearances and skill-sets are far different than their normal selves. In order to escape the game and make it back home, the teenagers have to put their differences aside and work together.

The well-received Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle feels like both a sequel and a reboot of the Robin Williams-led 1995 action-adventure classic, and manages to capture the thrills, chills, heart, and soul that made the original so much fun. If you love adventures through the jungle, look no further.

Stream Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle on Starz.
Rent/Buy Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle on Amazon.

The African Queen (IMDb TV)

When her brother dies at the hands of the German army while on a spiritual mission in Africa during the height of World War I, Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn) has to find a way to escape a similar fate, even if it means teaming up with drunk boat captain Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart). 

One of the best romantic comedies of all time, The African Queen laid the groundwork for movies like The Lost City and other similar action films. You have two main characters who go from bitter enemies to close companions, mystery, and danger around every corner and river bend.

Stream The African Queen on IMDb TV.
Rent The African Queen on Amazon.

Lethal Weapon (HBO Max)

Since his wife died, detective Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) has been living a dangerous life of undercover investigations and a generally reckless lifestyle. But, that all changes when he is partnered up with the more strait-laced Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover), who lacks the younger cop’s tenacious sensibilities. Together the unlikely pair set out to stop a massive drug operation, but only if they survive each other first.

Okay, Riggs and Murtaugh don’t fall in love with each other in the third act, but Lethal Weapon is one of the best examples of a great buddy cop action film and is considered an all-time classic at this point. And, even though the movie is set in Los Angeles and not the jungle, the “City of Angels” is technically a concrete jungle, right?

Stream Lethal Weapon on HBO Max.
Rent/Buy Lethal Weapon on Amazon.

Free Guy (Disney+)

Due to a glitch in the system, Guy (Ryan Reynolds), goes from a pre-programmed bank teller in the popular video game, Free City, to a sentient character who gains the ability to do things only the most advanced (and richest) of gamers can pull off. But upon looking into his situation, Guy learns something else is going on entirely.

Like Channing Tatum’s Alan Caprison in The Lost City, Guy becomes the most unlikely of heroes by the time his journey wraps up in Free Guy. Add in a dash of romance and some of the most intense action sequences of 2021, and you have yourself one of the best ways to spend a couple of hours. And, come on, there’s no such thing as too much Ryan Reynolds.

Stream Free Guy on Disney+.
Buy Free Guy on Amazon.

The Rundown (Amazon Rental)

When Beck (Dwayne Johnson), a hardened bounty hunter, is sent deep into the Amazon jungle to locate and retrieve his employer’s missing son (Seann Willam Scott), he soon finds out this isn’t going to be a simple job. Instead, Beck lands in the middle of bitter conflict that could not only put his mission in jeopardy, but also his life.

Whenever the topic of the best Dwayne Johnson movies comes up, you rarely see The Rundown, which is a shame. One of his first movies (and most forgotten performances), this 2003 buddy adventure film is a ton of fun and shows off the wrestler-turned-actor’s unmatched charm in action. This is definitely a must watch. 

Rent/Buy The Rundown on Amazon.

Speed (HBO Max)

Upon thwarting the plan hatched by a skilled bomber to secure a $3 million ransom, Los Angeles police officer Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) finds himself in the madman’s crosshairs. Instead of bringing harm to the hotshot cop, the bomber plants a device on a city bus that will explode if the speed drops below 50 miles per hour.

In addition to being one of the best Keanu Reeves movies, Speed also features the breakout role of Sandra Bullock, who plays Annie Porter, one of the passengers who becomes the driver of the explosive-riddled deathtrap. This iconic action thriller has since become one of the most iconic movies of the 1990s and also one of the most balanced.

Stream Speed on HBO Max.
Rent/Buy Speed on Amazon.

21 Jump Street (AMC+)

Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) are two police officers who couldn’t be any more unlike each other if they tried. Despite this, they become fast friends at the academy and serve as each other’s support system in a variety of ways. But that friendship is put to the test when the pair are assigned an undercover gig at a local high school that has become ground zero of a deadly drug epidemic.

Based on the 1980s crime series of the same name, 21 Jump Street is one of those movies that proved that Channing Tatum is more than just a hunk made in a lab for Nicholas Sparks movies. This movie just works, and features a nearly endless line of great performances from the likes of Brie Larson, Dave Franco, and Ice Cube.

Stream 21 Jump Street on AMC+ (Amazon Add-on).
Rent/Buy 21 Jump Street on Amazon.

This is just a small sampling of the great movies like The Lost City available, with many more waiting to be found in the depths of various streaming libraries. If you’re all caught up with these and you’re still looking for a way to kill some time, check out CinemaBlend’s 2022 new movies schedule so you don’t miss a thing at your local movie house or on your favorite streaming service.

If you are reading this, there is a good chance you have already seen Tom Holland take on the video game adventurer and treasure hunter Nathan Drake in the Uncharted movie. If that’s the case, then you are more than likely looking for more daring, dashing, and dangerous adventure movies and shows to watch while you wait for Sony Pictures to greenlight the sequel (which seems likelier than ever with the movie’s impressive opening weekend).

Worry not, because we have a whole treasure chest of movies and shows like Uncharted and you don’t need a special key, an old map, or a need to backstab your friends to enjoy them. On this journey you will find tales of hidden treasures, great on-screen pairings, and so many untrustworthy characters you won’t know who to trust.

National Treasure (Disney+)

In order to find the location of a legendary hidden treasure belonging to a group of secret societies — the Knights Templar, the Founding Fathers, and Freemasons — historian Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) steal one of the most heavily-guarded documents in the entire world: the Declaration of Independence. But he has to act fast as one of his former partners is trying to beat him to the prize through any means necessary.

If you are a fan of Uncharted’s treatment of historical figures and events, as well as sprawling narratives centered on hidden riches that may or may not exist, then National Treasure is perfect for you. By blending the elements of comedy, drama, and thrilling action, this fun-loving and fast-paced adventure story is fun that everything can enjoy. And with the Disney+ adaptation in the works, now’s a good time to familiarize yourself with the franchise. 

Stream National Treasure on Disney+.
Rent/Buy National Treasure on Amazon.

Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (Paramount+)

When a group of Nazis kidnaps his father in hopes of using his expertise and knowledge to find the location of the Holy Grail, professor and adventurer Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) leaves the classroom and picks up his hat and whip one last time to save his dad and stop the group’s plan from coming to fruition.

The Uncharted video games took inspiration from the Indiana Jones movies more than any other franchise, and that love of the Harrison Ford-led series can be felt throughout the 2022 film adaptation. If you loved the sense of adventure, and the father-son relationship of Victor Sullivan and Nathan Drake, then you’ll get a kick out of the complicated bond shared by Indy and his father Henry Jones Sr. (Sean Connery) in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Stream Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on Paramount+.
Rent/Buy Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on Amazon.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (Paramount+)

The ABC series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles focuses less on the version of the character that led the film franchise (though Harrison Ford does appear in one episode) and instead shares stories from archaeologist’s young childhood and teenage years.

If you are a fan of the flashback sequence in Uncharted that shows Nathan Drake and his brother Sam break into a museum under the cover of night (which was a lot like sequences from the third and fourth games in the PlayStation exclusive game series), then you’ll love these short and sweet tales of youth, adventures, and youthful misadventures.

Stream The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles on Paramount+.
Buy The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles on Amazon.

Jungle Cruise (Disney+)

Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) and ship captain Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) set off into the heart of the Amazon to uncover the location of an ancient tree that purportedly contains miraculous healing abilities. But as the unlikely duo discovers in Jungle Cruise, things aren’t always as they first appear especially when it comes to a mysterious land placed under centuries-old curse.

There is the surface-level comparison between Uncharted and Jungle Cruise in that both center on adventurers locating a mythical McGuffin in a beautiful yet deadly location, but there are other characteristics shared by both movies. One of the biggest similarities is the idea that the characters never know who they can really trust, which make for a big guessing game for the viewer while watching their stories unfold.

Stream Jungle Cruise on Disney+.
Rent/Buy Jungle Cruise on Amazon.

Midnight Run (Peacock)

Bounty Hunter Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) thinks he just scored the job of a lifetime when he agrees to track down Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas (Charles Grodin), who skipped bail after embezzling millions from his mafioso boss. Finding his target is no problem, getting him from New York City to Los Angeles, is a whole other story.

There is no treasure and there aren’t any elaborate puzzles in Midnight Run, but the 1988 buddy action comedy has more in common with Uncharted than you’d think. On one hand you have two reluctant partners who don’t really trust one another and will turn in an instant, and on the other, you have multiple groups of armed and dangerous men tracking them down from coast to coast. This “classic buddy dynamic” in Midnight Run is something Uncharted director Ruben Fleischer said he drew upon, in an interview with IndieWire.

Stream Midnight Run on Peacock.
Rent/Buy Midnight Run on Amazon.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl (Disney+)

When his ship is stolen and a local dignitary is kidnapped by an undead crew of pirates, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) forms an uneasy alliance with a young Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) to the save the day and send the pirates back to a watery grave in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

There is a lot to enjoy with the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, especially for those who liked the pirate elements of Uncharted. This action-packed thrill ride of a good time perfectly blends comedy, action, and drama to tell one of the most engaging stories set on the high seas.

Stream Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl on Disney+.
Rent/Buy Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl on Amazon.

Red Notice (Netflix)

After being framed for a massive heist he did not commit, FBI profiler John Hartley (Dwayne Johnson)  is left with no other option than to work with master criminal Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) if he wants to clear his name and prevent the actual thief from making off with the big prize (and glory).

One of the best Netflix movies, Red Notice is an outstandingly funny, sharp, and thrilling crime caper with double-crossing characters who will put a knife in their partner’s back at any given moment, which can also be said about Uncharted. Add in some great character interactions and heist planning sequences and you have the chef’s kiss of crime thrillers.

Stream Red Notice on Netflix.

Romancing The Stone (HBO Max)

Romance-adventure novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) finds herself in a situation not too unlike one of her books when she has to travel to Colombia to exchange a coveted treasure map for her kidnapped sister’s life. With the dashing yet egotistical Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas) at her side, Joan finds all kinds of adventure in the heart of the jungle.

Like Uncharted, Romancing the Stone has an ancient map (and massive treasure) at the heart of its story. By taking elements from multiple genres and centering the tale around a couple of strangers who just can’t seem to get along, Robert Zemeckis crafted one hell of a good time.

Stream Romancing the Stone on HBO Max.
Rent/Buy Romancing the Stone on Amazon.

Armour Of God (Amazon Rental)

Armour of God is a Hong Kong action-adventure film that follows Jackie (Chan), a musician-turned-adventurer who specializes in locating long-lost treasures. But when a woman is kidnapped by.a group of cultists hellbent on finding and using a set of powerful armor, Jackie is forced to rise to the occasion.

If the high-flying stunts, bone-crushing fight sequences, and cat-and-mouse games of Uncharted resonated with you, then you’ll love Armour of God. Though it doesn’t get brought up as much as some of Jackie Chan’s best movies, this fun (and funny) action flick is a can’t miss.

Rent/Buy Armour of God on Amazon.

Sahara (Paramount+)

Upon learning that a missing Civil War battleship is not in America but in the Sahara Desert, adventurer Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) leads a small team to Northern Africa to find the long-lost warship. But as their journey unfolds, the fearless group uncovers something more sinister under all that sand.

Although it wasn’t well received and didn’t make all that much money at the box office, Sahara is a fun adventure film at its core. Sure, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel with the genre, but if you want more fun-loving action with a bunch of quips after finishing Uncharted, this is a good place to start.

Stream Sahara on Paramount+.
Rent/Buy Sahara on Amazon

The Mummy (HBO Max)

Egyptologist Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) and adventurer Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) lead an expedition into ancient Egypt to uncover and open a tomb only to unleash an ancient curse that gives rise to unknown horrors.

A throwback to pulp classics of long ago, The Mummy is an extraordinary action movie that works so well because of its protagonists, just like Uncharted. This epic tale of adventure, discovery, and double-crossing “friends” is rousing good time and has fun with the campier supernatural elements. Maybe the Uncharted series will one day introduce similar supernatural elements from the video games someday soon.

Stream The Mummy on HBO Max.
Rent/Buy The Mummy on Amazon.

Each of these movies have at least one thing in common with Uncharted and either feature some of the same elements or tread the same ground. But before you start any of these action-adventure films, check out CinemaBlend’s breakdown of all the 2022 new movie releases.

With the world continuing to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic throughout 2021, there have been many times in the last year when all of us have collectively needed a good laugh – and fortunately Hollywood was there for us in that respect. Between some of the best filmmakers in the industry flexing their comedic muscles and surprise hits that came out of nowhere, the last 12 months saw a number of awesome comedy movies hit theaters and streaming services and they made us cackle until it hurt.

To celebrate these awesome cinematic successes, we’ve put together this Top 10 list highlighting the best of the best from the past year. Keeping in mind that the ranking prioritizes funny above all else, let’s dig in!

10. Raya And The Last Dragon

There were a number of funny animated movies released in 2021, including Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe's The Mitchells vs. The Machines and Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Charise Castro Smith’s Encanto, but in the comedy department the edge belongs to Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada, and Paul Briggs’ Raya And The Last Dragon, earning it the number 10 spot on this list. Its advantage? The effervescent presence of Awkwafina as Sisu.

The young star has proven to be a bright spot in anything she does, and earlier this year she got us laughing hard with her antics as an unconventional mythical hero. Her raspy voice and quick comedic timing translate beautifully in animation, and there is a great buddy rapport with Kelly Marie Tran’s Raya that is as solid a dynamic as any of its kind in live-action in the last year.

9. Free Guy

When properly utilized, Ryan Reynolds can deliver laughs as big as any star in Hollywood, and in 2021 his prime performance was in Shawn Levy’s Free Guy. It’s a very different turn than his cynical, R-rated antics in the Deadpool movies, but few can play ridiculous optimism like he can, and it’s the driving force behind the video game-inspired adventure.

Shawn Levy is a big go-to guy for family-friendly adventure, and on beyond taking advantage of Ryan Reynolds natural charm he has a good deal of fun playing with the tropes of gamer culture and the strange physics that the setting provides. Lil Rel Howery gives a standout supporting performance, and Jodie Comer demonstrates some surprising comedic chops while also being the movie’s big badass.

8. Jungle Cruise

Jaume Collet-Serra’s Jungle Cruise took a hell of a long time to get into theaters, as principal photography was completed all the way back in 2018, but when it did finally hit the big screen and Disney+ this summer, it proved to be worth the wait. In addition to spinning a fun adventure based on the Disneyland ride, the movie also sports some of the most charismatic leads of the year, with Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt proving to have great comedic chemistry together.

After years of trying to adapt other classic theme park rides for the big screen, Disney finally managed to match the terrific energy of the first Pirates of the Caribbean with Jungle Cruise. As one would hope, the puns are charmingly bad, but the highlight is the back and forth between Dwayne Johnson’s Captain Frank Wolff and Emily Blunt’s Lily Houghton, who both get to sling some sharp barbs in addition to pulling off some entertaining physical comedy.

7. Bad Trip

Despite my previously established appreciation for the comedy of Eric André, I can’t say that I went into Kitao Sakurai’s Bad Trip with the highest expectations – assuming the “prank” movie genre was pretty well-cornered by Sacha Baron Cohen and the Jackass gang – but limited expectations can provide the best surprises, and this is a case in point.

Those who aren’t into blue/gross-out humor need not apply, but it’s genuinely impressive how much mileage the movie is able to get out of unabashed shamelessness. Not every bit in Bad Trip works, but the ones that do click make you laugh until you need a moment to catch your breath.

6. Werewolves Within

When it comes to end of year lists, any film that is able to successfully juggle genres and tones has opportunity to show up in multiple places, and that’s the position Josh Ruben’s Werewolves Within is in. Just a few days ago I ranked the movie as the fifth best horror feature of 2021, and now it’s time to laud it for how funny it is.

Delivering that special awkward energy that made him such a delight on Veep and Detroiters, Sam Richardson is brilliant as Finn Wheeler, a ranger who finds himself assigned to a mountain town in the midst of a lycanthrope attack, and he is surrounded by an amazing ensemble of character actors who make spectacular comedic fodder as chaos ever escalates. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: Werewolves Within is a strong candidate to be called the best video game movie ever.

5. The Suicide Squad

Most of the comic book movies released in 2021 are ultimately too serious to qualify as one of the best comedies of the year, but James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is the big exception. The filmmaker’s comedic sensibilities have been a driving force in his work ever since he made his directorial debut with the horror comedy Slither in 2006, and with DC Films giving him the go-ahead to go buck wild with crazy R-rated action for the summer blockbuster, he did just that and created one of the funniest films of the last 12 months.

James Gunn’s ear for witty banter is working at full force in The Suicide Squad, and the spectacular ensemble cast he put together is impeccable in their delivery. It’s actually hard to even nail down which character is the funniest – be it John Cena’ Peacemaker, Sylvester Stallone’s King Shark, Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, or Daniela Melchior – because as soon as your brain puts up a candidate, your brain immediately reminds you of a hysterical sequence that puts someone else in the comedy spotlight.

4. The French Dispatch

Twenty-five years after the release of Bottle Rocket, cinephiles have made it clear that some are delighted by the whimsy of Wes Anderson, and others very much aren’t – but those of who are of the former persuasion got a hell of a lot to love in 2021 with the release of The French Dispatch. With the filmmaker taking a crack at making an anthology feature, the movie is an awesome five-for-the-price-of-one deal (including the wraparound story), and each has a different flavor that inspires big laughs.

The second chapter, “The Concrete Masterpiece,” is The French Dispatch’s funniest, as the premise about the homicidal artist (Benicio Del Toro) is played with perfect pitch, and Adrien Brody is the precise kind ridiculous in his rage flusters – but all of the segments have their own big laughs even among more somber and dramatic moments. It delivers exactly what you want from a Wes Anderson film.

3. Licorice Pizza

Paul Thomas Anderson has made some extremely grim and dark dramas (e.g. There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Magnolia), but some of his best works have been his lighter movies (e.g. Punch Drunk Love, Inherent Vice), and Licorice Pizza is a fantastic addition to the latter canon. It’s the filmmaker’s first crack at making a coming-of-age story, and the youthful energy is possesses is wild, endearing, and joyous.

There’s a terrific rambunctiousness to the hijinks of the lead characters – played flawlessly by Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman – but that’s paired with a wonderful ambitiousness that is genuinely endearing. The executed revenge against Bradley Cooper’s Jon Peters is the movie’s comedic highlight, but there are big laughs throughout, from Gary’s surprise arrest at the Teenage Fair that ends up being a bizarre case of mistaken identity, to Alana’s unfortunate tumble off the back of a motorcycle driven by Sean Penn’s Jack Holden.

2. I Care A Lot

J Blakeson’s I Care A Lot is a different kind of entry on this list, as it’s a comedy, but it also has a heart that is shriveled and black and pumps viscous tar. There isn’t a single redeemable human being among the cast of characters, as they are all either motivated by awful intent or willful ignorance, and it’s disturbing to think that it actually reflects a real part of modern society – but what’s magical about its sociopathic darkness is that it hits a point where it succeeds in being hysterically funny.

While audiences are naturally repelled by bad people doing bad things to good people, the rules are completely different when it’s bad people doing bad things to other bad people, and I Care A Lot is that notion incarnate. Rosamund Pike’s Marla Grayson puts the “devilish” in “devilish grin,” playing a lead even more evil than Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne, and the darkness in the film keeps you guessing and laughing right up until the shocking ending.

1. Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar

After the spectacular success of Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids in 2011, it took nearly a full decade to see the release of a new film written by Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig – but even if it takes another 10 years for them to make a third feature, it will be worth it if the movie is only half as phenomenal as Josh Greenbaum’s Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar. It is one of the most unrepentantly goofy comedies in recent memory, and far and away the most successful title in 2021 at inducing fits of hysterical laughter.

Critics may be praising Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, but Jamie Dornan has no greater cinematic moment in the past year than his lovelorn ballad in Barb and Star that has him praying to seagulls on the beach for romantic guidance. The incessant babble produced Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig as the titular leads is miraculous in how consistently funny it manages to be, and Damon Wayans Jr. has some of the best scene-stealing moments of the year as Darlie Bunkle, the world’s least clandestine secret agent. It’s an endless delight, and the best comedy of 2021.

We can only hope that there will be as many movies next year that make us laugh as hard as we did at this selection of titles. For a full look at what’s ahead in the next 12 months, both on the big screen and on streaming, check out our 2022 Movie Release Calendar.

Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise attraction has been around since the theme park first opened on July 17, 1955, and 66 years later, it finally followed in the footsteps of Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion by scoring its own cinematic adaptation. The Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt-led Jungle Cruise arrived both in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access on July 31, and just a month later, it was officially confirmed that a sequel is on the way. Now Jungle Cruise 2 producer Hiram Garcia has provided an idea of how the next installment will be bigger than its predecessor.

Hiram Garcia and Dwayne Johnson co-founded Seven Bucks Productions together in 2012, and just like Jungle Cruise, the production company will be involved in the making of Jungle Cruise 2. While promoting Johnson’s next movie, Netflix’s Red Notice, Garcia said the following to The Wrap about Jungle Cruise 2’s expanded scope:

While Hiram Garcia understandably didn’t provide specifics given how early it is into Jungle Cruise 2’s development, it sounds like the sequel will be more of a globe-trotting affair, with more than just two locations being primarily spotlighted. Throw in the developing relationship between Dwayne Johnson’s Frank Wolff and Emily Blunt’s Lily Houghton, and there’s already a loose groundwork laid out for Jungle Cruise 2 to be an even bigger adventure than the first Jungle Cruise movie.

Still, like Hiram Garcia said, the Jungle Cruise 2 creative team is in the ‘breaking story’ phase, so it’ll likely be a while until we lean any concrete plot details. That said, the producer added in the same interview that the sequel is a “big priority” for the Seven Bucks Productions team and Disney, and they “can’t wait to take the fans on another ride with this group.” So even though Dwayne Johnson is next expected to shoot his Christmas action movie Red One and Emily Blunt is attached to Christopher Nolan’s Robert Oppenheimer biopic, Jungle Cruise 2 is currently receiving a decent amount of attention, though an exact timetable wasn’t revealed.

Along with Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt reprising their respective roles, Jungle Cruise 2 will see Jaume Collet-Serra sitting back in the director’s chair and Michael Green returning to write the script. Johnson and Collet-Serra recently re-teamed for the DC movie Black Adam, which is in postproduction and hitting theaters in summer 2022. Meanwhile, Emily Blunt is currently shooting the Amazon series The English and will also star in a biopic about Kate Warne, the first woman to join the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates on Jungle Cruise 2’s progress, including where it ends up being slated on the theatrical calendar. For Disney+ subscribers who didn’t see the movie in theaters or shell out the money to watch it on Premier Access, it will become available on the streaming service at no extra charge starting this Friday, November 12.

Disney’s Jungle Cruise was a solid hit this past summer and while things in post-pandemic Hollywood are still more than a little weird, the movie’s success was good enough for Disney as a sequel was given the green light in short order. And it seems nobody is wasting any time on Jungle Cruise 2 as the director is already started some early work on the sequel despite already being hard at work on another major Dwayne Johnson release.

Hiram Garcia, one of Dwayne Johnson’s partners in Seven Bucks Productions, recently spoke with Variety and gave them an update on Jungle Cruise 2. While it’s clearly still too early for any specifics, Garcia revealed that director Jaume Collet-Serra is working on Jungle Cruise 2 while also being hard at work on post-production for Black Adam. And apparently co-stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt already have thoughts on what they want to see from their own characters in the sequel. According to Garcia... 

By far the most fun thing about Jungle Cruise was the chemistry between Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. While the romantic chemistry of their characters in the movie wasn’t great, the two actors were clearly just having fun working together and that came through in the movie. 

The plot of a Jungle Cruise sequel, honestly, isn’t necessarily that big a deal. One assumes it will see the main characters in a new jungle, on a new river, probably in search of some other mystical MacGuffin. The Disneyland and Disney World attraction the movie was based on technically covers multiple rivers, so there are several more to choose a location for the new story. 

If a Jungle Cruise sequel is going to be as much fun as the first film, it will likely be because Johnson and Blunt have found a way to continue the fun together, while also making the story for their characters fresh. It will be interesting to see what these actors are thinking will be good for the characters in the sequel.

While Jungle Cruise 2 is certainly a couple years away at the very least, it’s probably one movie some fans will really be looking forward to checking out. 

When it comes to quality, there's a lot to be said for what Disney+ has been able to produce month after month, but when it comes to quantity, the streaming service has, honestly, been coming up short in recent months. After you watch the few new things that are worth your time, what then?

November marks the two year anniversary of Disney+ and Disney is celebrating that milestone in a big way by providing not only the quality, but also the quantity. November 12, is Disney+ Day and the service is celebrating with quite possibly its biggest list of releases since day one. 

We'll see two major movie releases, as Jungle Cruise is taken off the premier access list and given to all subscribers. At the same time, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will also make its Disney+ debut.

A whole host of animated Disney shorts that haven't been available on Disney+ previously will finally arrive. We'll also get new shorts in the form of Olaf Presents, where the Frozen snowman reenacts popular animated Disney movies. And that's just the beginning. 

Wednesday, November 3

• Amphibia (S3, 5 episodes) 
• Dino Ranch (S1, 7 episodes) 
• Photo Ark (S2) 
• Storm Rising (S1)
• Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. - Episode 109 “Scutwork”

Friday, November 5

• Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
• Jingle All The Way
• Jingle All The Way 2
• Prep & Landing: Operation Secret Santa (Short)
• Santa Buddies
• The Search For Santa Paws
• Snow Buddies
• Space Buddies
• X-Men: First Class

Wednesday, November 10

• Mickey Mouse Funhouse (S1, 7 episodes)
• Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. - Episode 110 “Aloha - The Goodbye One”

Friday, November 12 — Disney+ Day

• Feast (Short)
• Frozen Fever (Short)
• Get A Horse! (Short)
• Jungle Cruise
• Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings
• All-New Short From The Simpsons - "Plusaversary"
• Paperman (Short)
• Tangled Ever After (Short)
• The Little Matchgirl (Short)
• The Ballad Of Nessie (Short)
• Tick Tock Tale (Short)
• Ciao Alberto (Short)
• Entrelazados - Disney+ Day Premiere - Season 1 All Episodes Streaming
• Home Sweet Home Alone - Disney+ Day Premiere
• Marvel Studios' 2021 Disney+ Day Special
• Olaf Presents - Disney+ Day Premiere - Season 1 All Episodes Streaming
• The World According to Jeff Goldblum - Disney+ Day Premiere - Season 2 Episodes 1-5
• Under The Helmet: The Legacy Of Boba Fett (Documentary Special)

Wednesday, November 17

• Disney’s Magic Bake-Off (S1, 3 episodes)
• Life Below Zero: Next Generation (S3)
• Minnie’s Bow-Toons: Party Palace Pals (S1, 4 episodes)

If Disney+ just saved up all the content for November 12, I'm not sure most people would blame them, but there are a few more releases in the latter half of November that are worthy of note. In fact, if you're a fan of Disney history, the big date in November isn't the 12th, it's the 19th. That's when Adventure Thru The Walt Disney Archives will arrive on Disney+ and it will be hosted by legendary Disney producer Don Hahn. 

Thanksgiving week will also be a huge one for Disney+, as Wednesday, November 24 will see the release of the first two episodes of Marvel Studios' Hawkeye series. This will be followed by Peter Jackson's Beatles documentary Get Back, which will arrive in three parts on three consecutive nights, November 25-27. 

Friday, November 19

• A Muppets Christmas: Letters To Santa
• Adventure Thru The Walt Disney Archives
• Puppy For Hanukkah
• The Pixar Story

Wednesday, November 24

• Becoming Cousteau
• PJ Masks (S5, 3 episodes)
• Port Protection Alaska (S4)
• Puppy Dog Pals (S4, 2 episodes)
• Secrets Of The Zoo: Tampa (S2)
• Hawkeye - 2-Episode Premiere

Thursday, November 25

• The Beatles: Get Back - Premiere "Part 1"

Friday, November 26

• Duck The Halls: A Mickey Mouse Christmas Special
• Ernest Saves Christmas
• Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas
• The Beatles: Get Back "Part 2"

Saturday, November 27

• The Beatles: Get Back "Part 3"

December will have to do quite a bit to top this line up. Of course, since we know that The Book of Boba Fett is already set to debut next month, 2021 is going to go out in style. 

With how popular Disney's many live-action films have been for so long, it was only a matter of time before they decided to create another movie that’s full of fun, fantasy, and adventure. This time, it was Jungle Cruise, a fun adventure based on the theme park ride of the same name. 

With a successful box office and positive reviews, it seemed that it would only be a matter of time before a sequel was announced. Luckily, we have some answers to some of your biggest questions on the matter of a Jungle Cruise 2 sequel, which is now on the list of upcoming Dwayne Johnson movies and Emily Blunt movies, so get ready.

Jungle Cruise 2 Is Confirmed - But There’s No Set Release Date

If you’ve been wondering if we’re going to see our favorite adventurers again, fear not, because it’s been confirmed that Jungle Cruise 2 is happening, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and joining Disney’s ongoing upcoming films list. 

However, even if the announcement has come out, there is no set release date as to when this sequel will premiere. This isn’t much of a surprise, considering it was only just announced a couple of months ago and filming is very unlikely to have started at this point, but it’s good to know that sooner or later, we’ll be returning to the jungle as if we had never left. It won’t be on any 2021 new movie releases, but, hopefully, we’ll get some more updates on it soon. 

Dwayne Johnson And Emily Blunt Will Return 

Another great piece of news is that both stars of the original film, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, are set to return in Jungle Cruise 2, as noted in The Hollywood Reporter article from earlier. 

Dwayne Johnson played Frank Wolff, a steamboat skipper who reluctantly agrees to guide two explorers on a quest for the mythical Tree of Life. Emily Blunt played Dr. Lily Houghton, an adventurous and virtuous botanist working in a male-dominated field who goes on the quest to find the tree to harness its power for modern-day medicine. 

I found Johnson and Blunt’s chemistry very enjoyable in the adventure film and they worked well off of each other, so hearing that they’re going to be coming back together makes this fan very happy. It’s unknown who else from the original cast might still come along, but as time goes on, I’m sure we’ll find out more.

Jungle Cruise 2 Producer Says That Johnson And Blunt’s Characters Are Going To Have Fun, Exciting Stories In The Sequel

At the end of Jungle Cruise, it seems like there wasn’t much adventure left to explore in their quest, so what exactly were they going to do now that that journey is over? 

Thankfully, that’s exactly what Jungle Cruise 2 producer, Hiram Garcia, predicted fans would want to know, and said that the sequel has unlimited possibilities in an exclusive interview with ScreenRant. 

Just hearing that gets me so pumped for the next film, and the possibilities that it might bring. Is Jungle Cruise going to turn into another awesome Pirates of the Caribbean franchise where we get to explore the world? I’m so excited to see what is next. 

Jaume Collet-Serra Is Expected Back To Direct, As Well As Michael Green To Pen The Script 

Via the same The Hollywood Reporter article from before, it’s also been reported that Jaume Collet-Serra, who directed the first Jungle Cruise, will return to direct the sequel. 

Jaume Collet-Sera is a director with a plethora of intriguing films in his catalogue, including the horror films House of Wax, Orphan, and The Shallows. He’s also been the director of some of the best Liam Neesen movies, such as Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night, and The Commuter. 

With how great Jungle Cruise ended up turning out, it’s no surprise that he is expected to return. It seems that Collet-Sera has actually gotten along with Dwayne Johnson quite well, as he’s also directing the upcoming DC film, Black Adam, in which Dwayne Johnson also stars. 

Michael Green, who also penned some of the script for the first Jungle Cruise, is expected to return to write. Green has also been quite active in Hollywood, writing for a plethora of super fun films, such as Hugh Jackman's last Wolverine film, Logan, the long-awaited sequel Blade Runner 2049, a remake of one of the best mystery movies, 2017's Murder on the Orient Express, as well as another murder mystery coming out next year, Death on the Nile. 

With such talented creatives back for the sequel, I have a feeling that Jungle Cruise 2 is going to be just as entertaining and fun as the first. 

Dwayne Johnson Is Eager To Get Started On Jungle Cruise 2 

Dwayne Johnson is about just as excited as you are for the upcoming sequel. Reacting to the news, Johnson posted on his Instagram that he was eager to get back to work, and thanks the fans for watching  Jungle Cruise so that it could get a sequel. 

Emily Blunt actually doesn’t have any social media, but if he’s ready to work on the sequel, I’m sure she’s just as eager to start working as well - and boss around Dwayne Johnson some more in the upcoming film. 

Watch Jungle Cruise On Disney+

If you still haven’t seen Jungle Cruise - or just want to watch it again - it will be available to stream for free on Disney+ on November, 12, 2021. 

Stream Jungle Cruise here.

What are you excited for the most about the upcoming sequel to this crazy adventure? The action scenes? The jokes between Blunt and Johnson? Whatever the case,  Jungle Cruise 2 is looking to be a fun, family film, and I can’t wait to see it when it releases. 

Now that Tenet has come and gone, Christopher Nolan is deep into putting together his next movie, a biopic about theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in developing the atomic bomb during World War II as leader of the Manhattan Project. Earlier this month, it was confirmed that Cillian Murphy will play Oppenheimer in the biopic, and now word’s come in that Jungle Cruise star Emily Blunt is being eyed for a substantial role.

While a deal hasn’t been finalized just yet, Deadline reports that Emily Blunt is in talks to join Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer as Katherine Puening, Robert Oppenheimer’s wife. Assuming she signs on, this would reunite Blunt with Cillian Murphy following their time together on A Quiet Place Part II, and these two would be part of an “all-star ensemble.” 

This has been a big year for Emily Blunt cinematically, as along with reprising Evelyn Abbott for A Quiet Place Part II, she also starred as Lily Houghton opposite Dwayne Johnson’s Frank Wolff in Jungle Cruise. Both movies have done commercially well in these pandemic-fueled times, with the Quiet Place sequel pulling in over $297 million worldwide and Jungle Cruise collecting over $212 million across the globe. Looking to her future beyond a potential role in Oppenheimer, Blunt is currently shooting an Amazon series called The English, and she’s also signed onto a movie for the same platform about Kate Warne, the first woman to become a detective at the Pinkerton Agency.

It was first reported that Christoper Nolan was working on a Robert Oppenheimer biopic in early September, with Cillian Murphy’s participation in the project only being hypothetical at that point. At the time, it was also unclear if Oppenheimer would be housed at Warner Bros., which has been involved in every Nolan-helmed movie since Insomnia in one form or another. Late last year, Nolan criticized the studio’s decision to release all of its 2021 theatrical slate simultaneously on HBO Max for a 31-day period, going so far as to call the platform “the worst streaming service.” Soon after, word came in that Nolan was “unlikely” to work with WB again.

Sure enough, less than a week after Oppenheimer’s existence was revealed to the public, it was announced that Christopher Nolan’s next movie would be housed at Universal Pictures. Since Nolan wasn’t contracted at WB nor had any first-look deals set up at the studio, this allowed him to look for other places to set up Oppenheimer, and Universal ultimately agreed to finance the estimated $100 million picture. It’s also been reported that in addition to being promised first-dollar gross and final cut on the biopic, Nolan has requested that Oppenheimer be given an exclusive theatrical window of somewhere between 90-120 days. It remains to be seen if that will be fulfilled, especially since it looks like 45 days is becoming the new window norm.

In any case, Oppenheimer is set to come out on July 21, 2023, though a specific filming start date hasn’t been revealed yet. While we wait for confirmation of Emily Blunt’s involvement and other actors to be announced for the biopic, keep track of other movies on the way with our 2021 release schedule and 2022 release schedule.

Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson are the dynamic duo we never knew we needed in Disney’s Jungle Cruise. The film, which is inspired by the Disneyland attraction, follows Dr. Lily Houghton (Blunt) and skipper Frank Wolff (Johnson) on a rollicking ride down the Amazon. The on-screen chemistry between these two actors is explosive in more ways than one, and Blunt has given fans an inside look at their partnership in a new behind-the-scenes clip. 

If you thought Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt were an odd pairing when first hearing of Jungle Cruise, you are not alone. But watching Jungle Cruise, every step their characters take together feels natural. They’re absolutely brilliant together. Blunt confesses that she and Johnson are in some ways the antithesis of one another and she can see how they are thought to be an odd pairing, but they are one that works. Watch what she has to say in the clip below.

If the opening of the clip where the two actors can’t stop laughing is any indication of the fun had on set, then Jungle Cruise was just as much fun to film as it is to watch. It’s easy to see the bond that was formed between them on set because both romance and comedy require a certain amount of trust between scene partners to convey effectively. Emily Blunt addresses this as she praises Dwayne Johnson in the clip with the following:

Such kind words from his co-star. It’s abundantly clear that both Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt were committed to making something great, as that’s exactly what they did. The film is so successful that a sequel has already been announced. It will be exciting to see where these characters explore next and how that journey furthers their relationship.

Jungle Cruise is full of surprises, from the jokes to the thrilling adventure to the romance that blossoms between our heroes. With the home release of the film, fans are in for even more surprises as they can watch the quest in a fun and exciting new way with Expedition Mode. This mode allows viewers to learn fun facts, discover easter eggs and catch some pop-up trivia throughout the movie.

In addition to Expedition Mode, the home release of Jungle Cruise has a treasure chest of bonus features. In It’s A Jungle Out There: Making Jungle Cruise, director Jaume Collet-Serra along with the cast and crew discuss the importance of the film’s various elements from makeup to the ancient indigenous language to honoring the Disneyland ride. Fans can go on-set with Dwayne and Emily Blunt and watch how their friendship helped them project a natural on-screen chemistry.

All of this and more, including outtakes and deleted scenes, are available when Jungle Cruise arrives on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD November 16. The film is available now on Digital.

There was an undeniable chemistry between Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt both within the Jungle Cruise movie and when the pair was giving interviews to promote the new Disney film. They were clearly having fun joking around with each other all throughout the press tour, but it seems that sometimes they were having a bit too much fun and it made Disney nervous. Interviews about Disney movies don’t usually involve anal beads.

Dwayne Johnson is profiled in the newest issue of Vanity Fair and among the numerous topics covered is The Rock’s sense of humor. His Jungle Cruise co-star Emily Blunt says that Johnson, while he is often a perfect gentleman, can also decide to really push a person’s boundaries, which got them in a spot of hot water at one point. 

Emily Blunt recalls one interview where the pair were asked what items they would take into the jungle with them. Johnson suggested that Blunt should take Vagisil, so Blunt, looking to respond in kind, suggested Johnson should take anal beads. Blunt says the calls from Disney came soon thereafter. According to the actress...

When you’re Disney you have a certain reputation to maintain. Unlike any other studio, Disney has connected its identity to a type of content that is fun for the whole family. As such, when the stars of your new movie start going off the script, it’s probably easy to get nervous that it’s only going to get worse.

I experienced a slightly lighter version of just this when I interviewed Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt prior to Jungle Cruise’s release. The interview happened to take place on my birthday, and Dwayne Johnson suggested that I go to a strip club to celebrate. Not sure that would have been the official Walt Disney Studios suggestion.

It’s certainly a balancing act for DIsney. Disney wants to get big stars in their movies just like everybody, but those same stars have certainly done other work in the past that likely would not pass muster for the House of Mouse. Disney would probably like most people to not think about Dwayne Johnson’s entire WWE career while watching Jungle Cruise. The interview was already at Disneyland after all.

With Jungle Cruise 2 now on the way, the good news is that Disney will at least be able to manage these two from the start. While certainly we want to see them have fun, one imagines they’ll be asked to keep things PG while they’re doing interviews before anybody says anything too wild rather than waiting until after.

Jungle Cruise was a big hit despite the state of movie theaters for both Disney and star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The Rock had no trouble thanking fans for supporting the film, earning it a box office milestone in shirtless Instagram videos, and was very happy and excited when a sequel was confirmed. Recently, The Rock has recalled riding Disney Worlds Jungle Cruise as a kid before going on to star in Jungle Cruise 2. 

Jungle Cruise is one of Disney’s most iconic rides and is now one of its most promising franchises that delivered a fun adventure movie with charismatic performances from Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt that fans want more of. It turns out The Rock rode the Jungle Cruise Ride as a kid, and he has explained what they tried to capture with the film and how his experience as a child shaped it, saying on a clip from Disney+'s Behind the Attraction which she shared on Instagram:

The Rock explains the origins of the Jungle Cruise ride and the reasoning behind why it has been so popular over the years. Dwayne Johnson also tells his Jungle Cruise origin story about getting to go to Disney World as a child and his experience with the ride that he would eventually star in a movie about. He describes the ride as transportive and surprising, similar to the feelings the film tries to evoke. 

Jungle Cruise was a great adventure movie, and there are plenty of films that fans should check out if they want something similar. The Blu-ray for Jungle Cruise has exclusive artwork, with different versions for fans to choose from. Jungle Cruise is going to be around for a while and is just another franchise that The Rock can add to his movie empire. Fans cant wait to see him and Emily Blunt together again, and their chemistry was one of the best parts of Jungle Cruise, and hopefully, it carries over to the sequel. 

Disney seems to be trying to strike gold with another franchise based on an iconic ride with The Haunted Mansion that hopefully can pull of something similar to Jungle Cruise. Dwayne Johnson’s hit franchise Jumanji is getting its own amusement park ride, so everything is coming full circle now, and who knows what movie will be getting a theme park ride next. 

The Rock has a lot of major projects in the works outside of Jungle Cruise 2, and perhaps the most anticipated is his debut DC movie Black Adam. Red Notice, which stars Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds alongside, Johnson arrives on Netflix on November 12th, so fans won’t have to wait very long for the next big movie from The Rock. 

In the last few weeks, Destin Daniel Cretton's Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings has been on a clear trajectory. It didn't quite manage to set a new high bar for opening weekends during the pandemic when it debuted in early September, but it did set an all-time record for the Labor Day holiday, and, as a theater-exclusive release, it has been raking in cash ever since. Last Sunday my column noted that the movie was on track to surpass Cate Shortland's Black Widow as the biggest domestic release of 2021, and now that is a goal that it has reached thanks to another ten-figure performance at the box office.

Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me afterward for analysis!

With an additional $13.3 million earned between this past Friday and today, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings has now earned $196.5 million total in North America, and can officially be called the biggest blockbuster the continent has seen in 2021. That total surpasses the $183.6 million that Black Widow has made since it came out in July, and together the two movies once again showcase the dominance that the Marvel Cinematic Universe presently has on the big screen.

Combined with the money that Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings has brought in from abroad, the blockbuster's worldwide total now stands at $363.4 million – and while that's a solid number, it means that the film presently on sits in sixth place on the global box office chart. Jia Ling's comedy Hi, Mom! – which was released in China back in February – firmly remains the biggest big screen earner of 2021, having made $841.7 million during its theatrical run, but there are also still a few American-made titles sitting in front of Shang-Chi in the rankings. Justin Lin's F9 is in second place, having made $716.2 million; Adam Wingard's Godzilla vs. Kong is in fourth place with its $467.8 million haul; and sitting right in front of the latest MCU title in fifth place is Black Widow, which has made $377.3 million globally to date.

The biggest factor in the success of Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings has been its staying power, which is perfectly showcased in the fact that it is the first film of 2021 to remain champion at the box office for four weeks in a row. We didn't see any of the major releases from this past summer pull off anything similar – as the season was littered with titles that tanked in their second weekends – and the only other titles to come close have been Godzilla vs. Kong and Carlos López Estrada and Don Hall's Raya And The Last Dragon (both features held on to the title of "#1 Movie In America" for three weeks each in the spring). Obviously it helps that there hasn't been much competition for it, but we'll get into that more in a minute.

The next major milestone for Shang-Chi will be crossing the $200 million mark, which should happen within the next week, and will be a moment for theaters across the country to celebrate. The industry has experienced a lot of strife within the past year-and-a-half, and all signs of things bouncing back towards normalcy are welcome. It will also hopefully continue to let studios have confidence in the films that are scheduled to come out this fall, particularly as the next big wave of blockbusters sets to unfurl in the last couple months of the year. Nobody wants to see more movies get delayed at this point.

Getting back to that bit about competition... now arrives the time to talk about the performance of Stephen Chbosky's Dear Evan Hansen, which biffed it hard during its opening weekend. Despite the fact that the movie is based on a popular, Tony Award-winning musical, the release has proven to have very limited box office draw, and it's hard to imagine there are many smiles abound at Universal Pictures after it only managed to make $7.5 million in its first three days. According to Variety, the adaptation was made with a $28 million budget (before publicity and marketing), and while that cost pales in comparison to, say, the $150 million-plus that was spent to make Shang-Chi, that's still an amount of money that the feature will have a hard time making back.

It's a development that is not incredibly surprising when you consider the critical reaction that Dear Evan Hansen received in the run up to its release, but it is one that makes one start to wonder about the viability of musicals at the box office going forward. There is no questioning the fact that we have seen a number of big successes from the genre in recent years, with Michael Gracey's The Greatest Showman and Dexter Fletcher's Rocketman being titles that immediately spring to mind, but we also can't ignore some rough flops – including Tom Hooper's Cats and Jon Chu's In The Heights. This is definitely a trend to keep an eye on, especially as more musicals, including Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, debut in theaters in the coming months.

Singing and dancing wasn't enough to end Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings' reign at the top of the box office, but you know what likely will? Another comic book movie. When Ruben Fleischer's Venom hit theaters in October 2018, it landed with an $80 million splash, and there is a far amount of expectation that the forthcoming sequel, Andy Serkis' Venom: Let There Be Carnage, will do some similar business. The new blockbuster will arrive in theaters this Friday, October 1, along with David Chase's Sopranos prequel The Many Saints Of Newark (which has been getting solid reviews), and both should do a nice job mixing things up for the Top 10. To discover how everything shakes out, be sure to come back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday for our full rundown.

Disney's Jungle Cruise is one of the highest grossing movies of the year and one of the most well received by audiences. While it's release during pandemic movie summer certainly curtailed its box office success, the movie was a big enough hit that it's already been given a sequel. And while we now know the movie is set for Disney+, for all viewers, in just a few weeks, there are certainly going to be many fans for whom watching the movie won't be enough, they'll need to own it.

If you're one of those people then you'll want to be ready on Friday September 24, as pre-orders for physical editions of Jungle Cruise on Blu-ray will be going live, but different retailers will be carrying slightly different versions of the release. And CinemaBlend has an exclusive first look at what each version of Jungle Cruise will look like and what cool stuff comes with each.

Best Buy - Jungle Cruise Steelbook

What good is actually owning a movie if you can't show it off a little bit? If it doesn't look awesome on the shelf does it even count? When it comes to Blu-ray packaging itself, one of the coolest looking case designs is the steelbook, and if you're a collector of this particular style, then you'll want to pick up your copy of Jungle Cruise at Best Buy, as it's got a great looking Blu-ray that will match the rest of your collection.

Target - Art Edition

If you're a fan of art, that you can see a bit better than a Blu-ray case sitting on a shelf, then you may want to reserve your copy of Jungle Cruise at Target. It includes art from poster artist Nicky Barkla. This includes an artistic rendering on the case of the disc itself, as well as a pair of limited-edition foil-etched prints included inside.

Wal-Mart- The Making Of Jungle Cruise Digital EBook

If you loved Jungle Cruise and you simply want to know more about the movie itself, then the edition you want to pick up will come from Wal-Mart. While the case you find there is pretty similar to the standard edition found elsewhere, what Wal-Mart will be including is a download code for a digital eBook called The Making of Jungle Cruise. While the Blu-ray itself will certainly have its own behind-the-scenes features, the book should give fans even more insight to the making of the film.

Of course, wherever you get a Blu-ray copy of Jungle Cruise you'll get all the cool on disc extra features. There are nearly a dozen deleted scenes, outtakes, looks at both the movie and the Disneyland ride that inspired it, and more. Pre-sale for Jungle Cruise on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD begins Friday September 24 and it will be released November 16.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, people have constantly been looking for aspects of normalcy – moments of peace that help us forget and temporarily escape certain scary aspects of reality. In the last few months the movie-going experience has been a wonderful resource for this, especially since theaters were closed for so long, and Destin Daniel-Cretton's Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings in particular has been providing the vibe since it came out in early September. The film isn't quite making the amount of money we've come to expect from Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbusters, but true to form for the franchise, it is successfully dominating at the box office.

Check out this weekend's full Top 10 in the chart below, and join me after for analysis!

As things presently stand, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings is now on pace to not only becoming the highest grossing domestic release in 2021 thus far, but also to become the first movie of the year to make more than $200 million in North America alone. With the addition of $21.7 million to its total over the last three days, the blockbuster is still sitting behind Cate Shortland's Black Widow, which has made $183.4 million to date, but by this time next week the Simu Liu-led feature will have surpassed that total.

The numbers represent another impressive weekend-to-weekend drop for the Marvel film. Last week it broke with the trend of a lot of 2021 blockbusters, dipping only 53 percent, and now the figures have only gone down a soft 37 percent. It marks the first time this year that a movie has managed to make over $20 million in its third week, which is quite an accomplishment (and it feels like it's something that would have been impossible for the feature had it been released simultaneously on Disney+ via Premier Access).

Of course, these figures will always have to be presented with an asterisk going forward, as while Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings is performing exceptionally well by COVID standards, those standards aren't pretty when compared to what we were used to seeing from box office returns before the pandemic. $200 million is an important milestone for the industry right now, but at the same time we are still only a little over two years removed from Joe and Anthony Russo's Avengers: Endgame shattering records with its $357.1 million opening weekend, and Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's Captain Marvel (a.k.a. the last character launch title in the franchise) debuting with a $153.4 million take. It's hard not to wonder how much more the film could have made under normal circumstances.

One nice feather in the new release's cap is that it's no longer on the bottom of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's worldwide box office rankings. Thanks to the money that Shang-Chi made this past week, its global total now stands at $288.9 million, which eclipses the $265.6 million that Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk earned in 2008. When it eventually moves past Black Widow, it will simultaneously also surpass Joe Johnston's Captain America: The First Avenger (as those two titles are currently only separated by a little over $200,000), but after that its climb will likely end. Given its pace, it's hard to imagine the film being able to earn more than $449.3 million before the end of its run, which was the amount brought in by Kenneth Branagh's Thor.

Thus far in 2021, only one film – Adam Wingard's Godzilla vs. Kong – has managed to hold the top spot at the box office for four weeks in a row, but Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings has a chance to match it. Looking at the competition it has coming up (more on that in a moment), it certainly appears as though it stands a good chance.

While the folks at Marvel Studios are surely very happy with what they've seen from Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, it's unlikely that executives at Warner Bros. are getting any warm, fuzzy feelings from the performance of Clint Eastwood's Cry Macho. We can't say with any kind of certainty how well the new feature managed to do digitally, as the studio has not released any official statistics regarding the performances of day-and-date HBO Max releases, but one thing that's clear is that movie-goers didn't show up for the film at the box office. There was surely some expectation that seeing Eastwood back in a cowboy hat would bring in some curious audiences, but that didn't work out when it came to selling tickets.

It's rough that Cry Macho opened in third place, behind both Shang-Chi and Shawn Levy's Free Guy, but far rougher is the meager $4.5 million it was able to bring in since Friday. It marks Clint Eastwood's weakest box office turnout as a director since 1980's Bronco Billy, which made only $3.7 million upon its release (and that's not accounting for inflation). As for why this happened, Variety notes that the movie was targeting older movie-goers, and that's a demographic that has not yet returned to theaters en masse.

At the very least Cry Macho isn't the weakest new wide release of the weekend, as that distinction belongs to Joe Carnahan's CopShop starring Frank Grillo and Gerard Butler. The film played in over 3,000 locations nationwide starting this past Friday, and the end result was an average of just $769 being earned per theater (for comparison, Shang-Chi made an average of $5,332 in 4,070 locations, and that is in its third week). Making just over $2.3 million, it's not a wide release that will be prominently remembered looking back on 2021.

On the milestone front, you'll not only notice that Free Guy has returned to second place in the Top 10, but it has also now joined the limited club of domestic releases that have earned over nine figures since January. It's an exclusive group that includes the aforementioned Shang-Chi and Black Widow, as well as Justin Lin's F9 ($173 million), John Krasinski's A Quiet Place Part II ($160.1 million), and Jaume-Collet Serra's Jungle Cruise ($112.6 million). It's a particularly big deal when you consider that it may be a few months before we see another title reach the threshold.

Looking ahead, the only new wide release that movie-goers will be seeing hit theaters this weekend is Stephen Chbosky's Dear Evan Hansen, which is based on the Tony Award-winning musical and just had its world premiere earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival. Will it be able to find a big enough audience to take down Marvel Studios' latest juggernaut, or will the MCU once again remain king of the box office? Be sure to return to CinemaBlend next Sunday to discover how it all shakes out.

When Cate Shortland's Black Widow arrived this past summer, it stirred up more than a little in-industry controversy. Fearing the bottom-line impact from the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, Disney made the call to release the Marvel Studios blockbuster simultaneously in cinemas and via Premier Access on Disney+, and while some records were broken in the film's first three days of release, Hollywood was shocked when ticket sales dropped nearly 70 percent during the feature's second weekend. In addition to adding extreme fuel to the theaters vs. streaming war and inspiring Scarlett Johansson to file a lawsuit, this situation has resulted in a lot of analysts' eyes being fixed on Destin Daniel Cretton's Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings – which has come out as a big screen exclusive. Now the box office numbers for the MCU movie are in, and it's hard not to look at them as a huge win for the theatrical experience.

Check out the full Top 10 below, with Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings once again leading the pack, and join me below for analysis!

So why is this a huge win? The answer rests in comparing the earnings above to the total made by Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings during its record breaking opening, which saw it earn $71.4 million in the first three days of the Labor Day holiday weekend. The $35.8 million that the Marvel Studios film has brought in since Friday means that its percentage dip was only 53 percent, which is a major deal when you consider the performances of many of the other massive movies released in the last three months,

To be more specific, Black Widow wasn't the only blockbuster that saw a dip of around 70 percent from its first weekend to its second. James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, Malcolm D. Lee's Space Jam: A New Legacy, Robert Schwentke's Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, and Justin Lin's F9 all experienced similar falls going back to the start of July. The suggestion from the numbers has been that those most excited to see these titles on the big screen bought tickets to see them as quickly as they could, but the majority of other potential movie-goers have been willing to settle for either streaming or home video in subsequent weeks. In the case of Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, however, there is clearly both a high level of excitement surrounding the film, and with the feature not being available to watch at home yet people are acting on their interest by buying a ticket and going to their local cinema.

To date, Shang-Chi has made $145.6 million, and it is quickly rocketing up the domestic Top Films Of 2021 chart. Black Widow remains the highest earner of the year, having made $183.1 million thus far on the big screen, but the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe title is well on its way to toppling it. Right now the Simu Liu-led feature has made $145.6 million, which puts it in fourth place for the year behind John Krasinski's A Quiet Place Part II, which made $160.1 during its run. It's also now broken into the Top 10 worldwide, and is now ranked in eighth place for the year with a gross of $257.6 million.

Of course, one has to look at all of this success in relative terms. The industry is still being deeply impacted by the pandemic, and that's reflected when you compare the performance of Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings with what we have seen from other Marvel Studios films prior to COVID-19. Case in point, the movie has still not made enough money to crawl out of the basement when it comes to the all-time worldwide earnings of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; it still sits about $8 million behind Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk, which made $265.6 million in 2008 before it was done playing on the big screen internationally. Much like how inflation has always tinged the practice of comparing box office numbers, we will now forever recognize the role played by the Delta variant in 2021 blockbusters.

One thing that certainly worked to benefit the performance of Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings was the fact that it didn't have much competition to face off against. As you can see in the chart, there was only one new wide release in theaters this weekend – James Wan's Malignant – and it didn't quite make a huge splash in its big screen debut, earning $5.6 million and nabbing third place in the Top 10.

Like all of the other titles released by Warner Bros. this year, Malignant premiered this past weekend simultaneously in theaters and streaming on HBO Max, and it's easy to believe that had a key impact on the movie's performance – but that surely wasn't the only influencing factor. The marketing for the movie was also very limited in an aim to protect all of the big twists and surprises (which have inspired wonderful social media chatter all weekend). Because of this, awareness of it may have not have been at maximum levels. That being said, it's a film that has "future cult following" written all over it. It's unlikely that its growing core audience will be reflected in future weeks at the box office, as the convenience of watching it at home may prove too alluring for most, but that's too bad because it makes for a fantastic theatrical experience.

As for other new releases, Paul Schrader's The Card Counter also did some interesting business this weekend – albeit while still opening in eighth place in North America. Focus Features gave the Oscar Isaac movie a limited release in just 580 locations on Friday, and while it only made $1.1 million, that calculates to an impressive per theater average. It couldn't touch Number One in that regard (Shang-Chi put up an average of $8,322 in the last three days), but the film was number two in that regard with $1,897.

Looking ahead to next weekend, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings may be looking at the possibility of moving to second place, but that will all depend on the draw of Clint Eastwood's Cry Macho, which is another Warner Bros. title that will be both in theaters and on HBO Max starting this Friday. We'll discover how everything plays out when the numbers come in next Sunday, and you'll find my latest box office column here on CinemaBlend when they do.

As children head back to school (in person in many cases this year!) it’s common for the swell of parkgoers at major theme parks like Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood to die down a bit. However, this year, there may be other contributing factors to why both California-based theme parks are seeing low lines this time of year. Popular rides at both theme parks were looked at, and as it turns out there’s only one major ride that’s seen an increase in wait times since 2019.

Typically, you would expect lengthy wait times on certain popular rides--old stalwarts like Space Mountain still command a long queue, as do recently built rides like Disneyland’s recent addition Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure. However, one guest recently revealed to the LA Times that they went to the park on a recent weekday and the wait was only 20 minutes for the new Spidey ride. The outlet spoke with an outside firm, who confirmed that wait times have dropped overall in both California theme parks--and given this has happened over time, it’s not just the back-to-school thing that’s the cause.

In fact, the outside firm (Touring Plans) looked at 10 rides at each of the California parks and confirmed wait times on all 10 rides had dropped since 2019. This actually excludes newer rides like Web Slingers due to those rides only having been open for a period of months and not years, but it does include other popular rides such as Disneyland and California Adventure’s Guardians Breakout!, Radiator Springs Racers, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones Adventure, Soarin’, Peter Pan’s Flight and more.

At Universal, 10 popular rides including The Simpsons Ride, Jurassic World -- The Ride, Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, Transformers: The Ride 3D, and more have all seen wait times decrease since 2019. While the wait times at Disneyland have dropped five minutes on average, at Universal Studios Hollywood the change is even starker, with wait times dropping 22 minutes on average. The report also notes that for some rides, the wait time has dropped to an even higher degree, with the Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland and Revenge of the Mummy at Universal Studios Hollywood seeing half the normal wait times.

There is one exception to this “wait times have dropped” rule. Jungle Cruise at Disneyland has seen its wait times grow. The article doesn’t mention why, but I’d have to assume this is due to two factors. The ride was recently refurbished to include a new storyline after complaints about some depictions on the ride were noted as inappropriate. Ride changes usually pique the interest of fans. Secondly, Disney also put out Jungle Cruise the movie starring Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson, which I assume sparked guests to check out the ride more during the summer months as well. So its wait time has more than doubled since 2019, but overall across both popular theme parks other wait times are down.

A combination of factors seems as if they could be the cause. Rides and parks were at limited capacity for a time, particularly in 2020 after theme parks reopened following a period of shutdown. For a time both Disney and Universal parks had reservation systems in place; though Universal Hollywood is no longer requiring those, Disneyland kept them. Hesitancy over visiting a theme park with Covid still a worry may also have had an impact on peoples’ willingness to visit.

Universal Studios and Disneyland both have separate strategies for how the parks will be operating moving forward. For example, Disneyland has made changes to the way its Annual Passes and Fastpasses are available/work. However, in common they both have had safety protocols and capacity restrictions in place in California. We'll have to wait and see what happens when parks get back to normal... or at least get back to whatever the new normal ends up being. In the meantime, we'll keep you updated ever step of the way.

In case you hadn't noticed, it's been a strange and often troubling time in recent weeks for movie studios to release big blockbuster titles. Rising numbers of the COVID-19 Delta variant has stunted box office potential, and it has resulted not only in subdued numbers, but we're also starting to once again see some notable upcoming features changing their release dates. Given this atmosphere, there has been a great deal of curiosity surrounding Destin Daniel Cretton's new Marvel movie Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings. Going into its theatrical debut, there were questions regarding how its performance would stack up within the legacy of the world's most popular franchise, and if it would meet the standard that has been set. Now we have an answer in the form of record-breaking Labor Day weekend ticket sales.

Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis!

As I noted in my column last weekend, the final weeks of August/early weeks of September are not seen as a goldmine for studios, as people typically have more things going on in their lives than seeing movies – and that goes a long way in explaining why the previous box office record holder for biggest Labor Day weekend was Rob Zombie's Halloween, which brought in $30.6 million on the holiday (Friday to Monday) in 2006. Of course, this year marks the first time that Marvel Studios has ever put out a new title in September, and their films have a history of upending what is considered normal. We'll have to wait and see what the final total is after audiences spend part of their day off tomorrow seeing the blockbuster, but obviously the $71.4 million already earned blows the previous #1 out of the water.

It's a wonderful albeit rare thing to see a film break a pre-pandemic record these days, though it should also be noted that Shang-Chi And the Legend Of The Ten Rings hasn't quite set mid-pandemic records. Instead, these opening weekend numbers mean that the film has to settle for second place when it comes to ticket sales since March 2020. It made enough money domestically to beat our Justin Lin's F9, which earned $70 million in its first three days in late June, but it fell just a tad short of the $80 million that fellow Marvel release, Cate Shortland's Black Widow, pulled in back in early July. As you can see, the latter is still hanging out with its franchise cousin on the Top 10.

As ever, it's definitely better too look at the performance of the new release in the context of other movies in the last few months, as the opening frame for Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings ultimately doesn't look all that impressive when you stack it up compared to all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films going back to 2008. With its take, the film sits just outside the Top 20 opening weekends in the franchise, having made just a few million less than what Peyton Reed's Ant-Man And The Wasp earned in summer 2019. It does sit ahead of all of the non-Iron Man Paramount releases – including Kenneth Branagh's Thor ($65.7 million), Joe Johnston's Captain America: The First Avenger ($65.1 million), and Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk ($55.4 million) – and also Peyton Reed's Ant-Man ($57.2 million).

What should also be noted is that Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, unlike Black Widow, was not given a hybrid release by Walt Disney Pictures, and is currently only available to watch in theaters. This in mind, there are going to be a lot of industry eyes on how well the film performs next week. Black Widow notoriously saw its numbers drop off in a crazy way in its sophomore weekend, and much of the blame has been put on the fact that the movie was available to watch via Premier Access on Disney+ (the suggestion being that the majority of people not clamoring to see it opening weekend on the big screen were happy to settle for a viewing in their living rooms instead). Its performance could actually add an interesting wrinkle to the on-going lawsuit that Scarlett Johansson filed this summer, so be on the lookout for updates on that story.

Unsurprisingly, no other studio dared try to put out their own new wide release to compete with Shang-Chi And the Legend Of The Ten Rings, and while that led to somewhat depressed box office numbers over all, the films from August are continuing to pull in money from theaters. At the front of the line is Nia DaCosta's Candyman, which only dropped 52 percent in its second weekend, and added another $10.6 million to its domestic haul.

You may remember that Candyman impressively overperfomed when it debuted, pulling in $22.4 million in its first Friday-to-Sunday, and it was able to still find a solid number of people to scare even while going up against a well-reviewed franchise juggernaut. The horror film has now made $39.1 million at the domestic box office, which means that it has surpassed the total made by Bernard Rose's original during its entire theatrical run in 1992 (though that doesn't account for inflation). With its $10.9 million take abroad, the release has eclipsed $50 million worldwide.

Two of the most impressive performers right now, however, are Jaume Collet-Serra's Jungle Cruise and Shawn Levy's Free Guy. Both movies have been around since the first half of August, and they are holding on tight to their respective spots in the Top 5. Neither release had crazy splashy debuts, as neither managed to make over $35 million in their first three days, but they've continued to bring in money while other new releases have floated down to the bottom of the chart.

When it comes to the conversation surrounding hybrid releases, Jungle Cruise has been a bit of an anomaly, as it remains available via Premier Access on Disney+, but it has continued to bring audiences to the big screen. Not only has it made $105.6 million in North America, but it has also earned $86.9 million from overseas ticket sales, bringing its global total to $192.5 million. That puts it on the worldwide Top 10 for 2021.

Free Guy, meanwhile, is doing even better. Like Shang-Chi, the video game-inspired Ryan Reynolds comedy is only available to watch on the big screen, and the buzz surrounding it has continued to draw in audiences. The $8.7 million it has brought in since Friday brings its domestic total up to $91.9 million, and when combined with the $147.4 it has made abroad the film's global box office total balloons to $192.5 million.

Looking ahead, will Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings be able to hold on to its box office crown when James Wan's Malignant arrives this Friday, or will the enigmatic horror film become a massive early fall surprise? Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see how the showdown shakes out.

Disney's Jungle Cruise was one of the movies that delayed itself by a full year out of the gate back in the spring of 2020. And while it certainly wasn't able to have the massive box office opening weekend it was hoping for, between theatrical release and Disney+ Premier Access, the movie has done pretty well for itself. It's still a hit with fans, even if the definition of what that means has changed a bit. While circumstances might be unusual, Disney has apparently decided it liked what it saw, as a sequel has now been given the green light, and Dwayne Johnson is excited.

The actor, who starred as Frank Wolff alongside Emily Blunt, took to Instagram to thank the fans for making Jungle Cruise a hit, as the movie has now passed the $100 million mark domestically. And he's clearly ready to go on another cruise. Most of the core Jungle Cruise team will be back both in front of and behind the camera. While Johnson and Blunt are back to star, Jaume Collet-Serra will return to direct the film from a script by Michael Green. Johnson confirmed all this in his post, saying:

While the movie business has been more than a little unusual of late, with Disney you wouldn't know it by the way the studio has been greenlighting sequels. Both Cruella and Jungle Cruise, movies that saw simultaneous theatrical and streaming releases, have been given sequel orders, which indicates the studio sees potential in them despite the fact that neither was even capable of performing on par with what we would consider box office blockbuster level success.

It's far too early to know what will be in store for Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt in the Jungle Cruise sequel, but it will almost certainly include them on another major river of the world in search for some treasure. The Jungle Cruise attraction at Disneyland and Walt Disney World takes place on multiple rivers. The first movie took place on the Amazon so the sequel could see the duo cruise down the Nile, the Mekong, the Congo, or more. There are enough places the the Jungle Cruise experience happens that we could easily see several more sequels.

As one of those people who had fun with the first movie, I'm certainly looking forward to the sequel. I'm also hoping Jack Whitehall gets to go along for the new ride as well. He was an entertaining part of the first film and the boat would feel just a little bit empty if he's not on it again. Also, more puns.

Obviously, the script isn't written yet so it's going to be a while before Jungle Cruise 2 becomes an active concern and gets a release date. And then, one has to wonder what will happen when it gets that release date. Will Jungle Cruise 2 be a theatrical film? Will be a Disney+ Original? Could it get a dual release simply because the first movie did? There's a lot about the future that we just don't know, but it will be interesting.

The recently released Jungle Cruise killed at the box office, and with good reason! The chemistry between Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt seems to be both on screen and off screen, because Blunt has some serious fun roasting her co-star. Fans can’t get enough of her slight digs at the massive former heavyweight champion, and it would appear that Johnson himself feels pretty much the same.

While Dwayne Johnson has some serious face-palmable dad jokes and puns on screen for Jungle Cruise, Emily Blunt’s humor is more of the roasting sort. Johnson seems to live for this type of humor off screen as well, as he shares a compilation of his co-star making jabs at him during interviews on his Instagram. Johnson seems to get in a couple jabs of his own, but it seems Blunt here is the master of the art. You can check out the video below, as well as a fun-loving caption that Johnson paired with the compilation:

There are plenty of comedic gold moments here, but I think the best part of this whole post is the fact that Dwayne Johnson refers to himself and Emily Blunt as “Em & DJ” - closely followed by Johnson’s roaring “belly laugh,” of course. If fans weren’t convinced of the two stars’ friendship before, the fact that the two have cute little shortened names together definitely seals the deal I would think.

It would seem that Dwayne Johnson finds Emily Blunt’s fake snake bit to be a pretty memorable source of entertainment, because he calls that joke out specifically in his caption, saying he really got her with “The fucking snake.” It does seem to really shock him in the video, although his character certainly faces more dangerous snakes in Jungle Cruise.

Dwayne Johnson’s post acts as a thank you to fans as well, for loving the Disney movie and making the film the biggest blockbuster of the year so far. What is even more than another thank you video, though, is that Johnson says at the end of his caption that he and Emily Blunt have some Jungle Cruise news coming, and we just found out... it's a sequel!

A sequel for Jungle Cruise would surely rival Dwayne Johnson’s biceps for being the biggest thing in the room. As successful as the film has been, especially when the pandemic is still holding box offices back slightly, news of a greenlit sequel makes all the sense in the world. The fact that Disney already has a Jungle Cruise ride that the movie was based on makes it pretty likely that a franchise could be formed here.

Fans and Dwayne Johnson are both loving the dynamic between the two Jungle Cruise leads, and the chemistry between him and Emily Blunt would certainly help come sequel time. Although we already know we’ve got another “Em & DJ” team up in our future, another film in the same world as Disney’s Jungle Cruise has now made it to the top of our Can't Wait list.

Jungle Cruise had been a long time coming, and a month ago, the movie based off the popular Disney theme park attraction finally arrived in both theaters and on Disney+’s Premier Access. The Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt-led feature performed solidly on the critical and commercial fronts, and after Jungle Cruise’s opening weekend, Johnson said that discussions were underway with the Mouse House about a sequel. Well, looks like Jungle Cruise 2 is indeed moving forward.

Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt are reportedly set to reprise Captain Frank Wolff and Dr. Lily Houghton in Jungle Cruise 2. THR also revealed that screenwriter Michael Green, who co-wrote the first movie’s script with Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, is returning to pen the sequel. Director Jaume-Collet-Serra is also set to resume his helming duties, making this his third collaboration with Johnson, as they also recently shot Black Adam together.

With movie theaters still operating with certain restrictions due to the pandemic, Jungle Cruise has done well for itself given the circumstances. The Disney movie opened to $35 million at the box office on its first weekend, as well reportedly pulled in more than $30 million for Disney+ subscribers who decided to watch it on the Premier Access tier. At the time of this writing, Jungle Cruise’s worldwide total stands at $187 million. Critically speaking, reception towards Jungle Cruise has been more on the mixed side among critics, ranking at 63% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, it boasts as much higher Audience Score of 92%.

Taking all that information into account, it’s hardly surprising Disney wants to keep the Jungle Cruise cinematic action going. Just like how 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl launched a film series, there’s plenty of franchise potential in Jungle Cruise, so rather than Frank Wolff and Lily Houghton’s adventuring together being a one-and-done affair, we’ll watch them embark on another journey in Jungle Cruise 2. What will they be looking for the next time around? What sort of obstacles will they run into? For now, that’s hard to say, although there’s a lot more content that can be mined from the Jungle Cruise attraction (which has existed at Disneyland since it opened in 1955) to adapt for the sequel.

In the meantime, Dwayne Johnson can next be seen in Netflix’s Red Notice this November, where he stars opposite Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds. Meanwhile, Emily Blunt has been shooting the upcoming Amazon series The English over the last several months, and she also signed on to a movie about real-life detective Kate Warne, which also hails from Amazon.

Starting tomorrow, August 31, Jungle Cruise will be available on all major digital platforms, and it’ll be released on Blu-ray, DVD and 4K Ultra HD on November 16. While we wait for more news about Jungle Cruise 2’s development, learn what movie are arriving in the near future with our 2021 release schedule and 2022 release schedule.

The world of cinema has been rocked by the pandemic for the last 17 months, changing the way we watch movies, and one particular experience that has been missed the most during this time has been the opportunity to watch a good horror film in a packed theater. The energy and atmosphere that the genre can muster is unique and special, and bathing in its palpable effects is one of the true pleasures of the medium. And while we are obviously not back to normal yet, audiences clearly wanted a taste of that feeling this past weekend, as Nia DaCosta’s Candyman has arrived and has claimed the title of number one movie in North America after its first three days.

Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis!

Late August is not generally seen as a great release window, as it's typically a time when people are wrapping up summer vacations and parents are getting kids ready for the new school year. Candyman, however, was able to conjure up quite a bit of buzz (no pun intended) and translated that chatter into a $22.4 million win at the box office. That's a win by any standard too, as the top earner in the corresponding weekend in 2019 (a.k.a. pre-pandemic) was Ric Roman Waugh's Angel Has Fallen, which made $11.8 million in its opening weekend. 

Looking back on the last few weeks, the new horror movie brought in money comparable to both Shawn Levy's Free Guy, and James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, as they all landed in the $20-30 million range, but Candyman is easily the biggest success of the trio, and it all comes down to price tag. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Nia DaCosta's film was made for a budget of $25 million, which is nothing compared to the nine digit cost of the other two.

Of course, the elephant in the room that can't be ignored is that Candyman is also another 2021 release that didn't go with a hybrid release model, and is currently only available to watch in theaters. It's possible that it won't be immune from the deep second weekend plunge that a lot of other big releases have been experiencing in the last few months, including streaming and non-streaming titles alike, but there are also reasons to believe that it may end up showing some legs.

In addition to getting positive reviews and being based on notable IP, Candyman was surely a draw to theaters at least in part because of Jordan Peele's involvement. The filmmaker has a stellar big screen reputation that he has developed in the last half-decade – obviously thanks to the massive successes of Get Out and Us – and his involvement with the new release as both a co-writer and producer undoubtedly earned the project some extra attention. Peele's brand is only growing stronger in the horror genre, and it only raises anticipation for his next directorial effort, Nope.

Candyman won't have a long run as the number one movie domestically, as are now just a few days away from the release of the next Marvel Studios production, but Candyman is a movie that has the potential to stick around in the bottom half of the Top 10 as we edge closer and closer to the Halloween season.

Candyman was the only new wide release of the weekend, which certainly gave it an advantage towards premiering at the top of the box office chart, but the other movies playing around the country still managed to sell a solid number of tickets – starting with the Free Guy. After not experiencing the aforementioned deep second weekend plunge in the last Friday-to-Sunday cycle (dipping only 34 percent), the video game-inspired blockbuster has continued to do well, and only went down another 27 percent compared to the same time frame last week. To date it has made $79.3 million, which makes it the seventh highest grossing release of 2021 thus far, and it is only seven million away from overtaking Craig Gillespie's Cruella in sixth place.

Cal Brunker's PAW Patrol: The Movie, which came out last weekend both in theaters and on Paramount+, also had a decent showing at the box office, and only went down 50 percent compared to its debut. The full totality of the animated film's success is hard to quantify given that the subscriber and streaming traffic numbers aren't made available, but to date the big screen side of the release has brought in $24.1 million, which is just a bit shy of matching the production's $25 million budget (according to Forbes).

One big milestone that is worth celebrating in the fourth line of the box office chart above. Jaume Collet-Serra's Jungle Cruise has done an impressive job hanging tight in the Top 5 ever since it was released in late July, and while it hasn't been adding massive piles of cash to its domestic total each week, the film has now joined 2021's very limited club of films to make north of $100 million domestically. The other titles on this exclusive list are Cate Shortland's Black Widow ($188.5 million), Justin Lin's F9 ($172.7 million), John Krasinski's A Quiet Place Part II ($160.1 million), and Adam Wingard's Godzilla vs. Kong ($100.6 million). We'll have to wait and see if any of the other movies currently out or forthcoming can hit that that milestone as well.

On the subject of expected successes, this Friday will see the arrival of a brand new Marvel Cinematic Universe hero on the big screen, as Destin Daniel-Cretton's Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings will be playing in theaters everywhere. Like Candyman, it's arriving on a wave of positive buzz, but will it be able to out-gross the $80 million made by Black Widow in July, which was simultaneously available on Disney+ via Premier Access? That will be the big narrative we look at in next Sunday's box office report, so be sure to check back here on CinemaBlend then.

When Walt Disney Studios first conceived of Jungle Cruise, a movie based on a popular theme park ride, they certainly were envisioning a very different world than this one. The metrics by which success are measured at the movies have changed drastically, but especially under these circumstances Dwayne Johnson is extra happy to see Jungle Cruise performing well both in theaters and on Disney+ and so he's thanking fans for making the movie a hit, and possibly teasing that an official sequel announcement could be coming very soon.

In an Instagram video Dwayne Johnson apparently takes a break in the middle of his workout to thank fans for continuing to make Jungle Cruise a success, even after a few weeks. The movie has continued to find success both in theaters and on Disney+, and, is close to hitting the $100 million mark at the domestic box office.

Jungle Cruise is just over $93 million and it made $6 million at the domestic box office last weekend, so breaking the $100 million barrier before it's done isn't out the realm of possibility. The movie is just short of $175 million globally. The number is impressive considering that movie theaters are still far from being as full as they used to be, and that many people have watched the movie at home on Disney+. That also means that the total take for the movie is in excess of $175 million, but exactly what it is we don't really know.

The Rock also touts the movie as the number one family movie of the year. It's one of those distinctions that doesn't always mean a lot. It depends on what you classify as a family movie and what the competition really is. But however you run the numbers, Jungle Cruise has done well, maintaining comparatively good box office numbers even four weeks later. This is something we didn't always see even during normal movie release conditions.

Dwayne Johnson also promises that a "big surprise" for Jungle Cruise is coming up. And while he calls it a surprise he also says that thinks people probably know what it is. It's likely an official announcement that a sequel is on the way. Johnson has been open about the fact that sequel discussions have been happening, and if the numbers are looking as good to Disney as they do to him, then it's likely that a sequel will happen. Jungle Cruise has performed better than Cruella at the domestic box office, though not quite as good internationally thus far, and Cruella 2 has been officially confirmed, so it all bodes well for Jungle Cruise 2.

Jungle Cruise performed reasonably well with critics and even better among the fans who have seen the film. While it might not have reached the heights of the early Pirates of the Caribbean films, it's also clearly not The Haunted Mansion, making it a solid entry in the "movies based on theme park rides" genre.

This summer has seen a pattern develop in regards to blockbusters – especially those that have been getting simultaneous theatrical and streaming debuts. While box office records have been set for the COVID-19 era in the last few months, with the big screen experience starting to bounce back after 2020, we have repeatedly seen movies with hybrid release models take a nosedive in their second weekends. Because of this, all eyes were on Shawn Levy's Free Guy for the past three days, curious how it would perform as a cinema-exclusive title – and the results are most definitely interesting, as the Ryan Reynolds film not only held on to the top spot, but held on strong. Check out the full Top 10 below, and then join me after for analysis!

Because Free Guy was developed as a 20th Century Fox title prior to the big studio merger in 2019, Disney didn't have the option to release the movie via Premier Access on Disney+ – something we've seen them do multiple times this year with titles like Cate Shortland's Black Widow, Jaume Collet-Serra's Jungle Cruise, and Carlos López Estrada and Don Hall's Raya And The Last Dragon. This set it up as an interesting experiment: would it follow the pattern of massive second weekend drops like Black Widow, Malcolm D. Lee's Space Jam: A New Legacy, or James Gunn's The Suicide Squad; or would it's theater-only release stop that from happening? Now that the smoke is clearing, it's hard not to notice that the percentage dip by the Ryan Reynolds film is about half of what those other movies did, only falling 34 percent.

It should be noted that the aforementioned pattern we've seen this summer isn't perfect. Justin Lin's F9 was also only available to watch on the big screen when Universal released it in late June, but it still saw a 67 percent drop in its second weekend over the July 4th holiday. And while Jungle Cruise was available for a premium price via streaming when it launched in late July, it only fell a reasonable 55 percent when it competed with The Suicide Squad in the first week of this month. There are also many external factors to consider, as one has to also recognize that the rising Delta variant numbers have impacted audience behavior, and there is always the impact of new competition. All the same, this is going to be a weekend that analysts point to as the debate about the co-existence of theaters and streaming rages on.

Regardless of how it's dissected in the macro scheme, Free Guy is independently a massive win for all involved. Being a movie not based on existing IP and that had been delayed several times, the film was predicted to make only about $20 million maximum in its first three days, and after successfully annihilating that low bar in its opening weekend, now it almost hit it again in its sophomore Friday-to-Sunday. The video game-inspired feature has now earned $58.8 million domestically, and $77.3 million worldwide. It still has quite a distance to go before it is profitable on paper, as the production had a nine-digit budget, and there is also marketing and publicity to account for, but it presently stands in a really strong place.

Part of the reason that Free Guy only dropped 34 percent this weekend is because it's a movie with a lot of buzz, and audiences of all ages have been really taken with it. That positivity could result in it continuing to make a lot of money in the coming weeks, especially as its broad appeal goes up against the R-rated horror of Nia DaCosta's Candyman, which is the big new wide release coming out this Friday.

As for the new releases this weekend, it's a story of a surprisingly number of movies putting up some numbers that aren't all that impressive. Free Guy in its second weekend faced off against four new features making their way into theaters for the first time, and it thwarted them all off rather easily.

In recent weeks, family films (like Jungle Cruise) have been some of the strongest box office performers, and Cal Brunker's PAW Patrol: The Movie was able to nab second place in the Top 10 with its $13 million haul. The feature, based on the popular television series of the same name, skews much younger than the PG-13 antics in the new Ryan Reynolds movie, and it's reasonable to think that parents used it as a solid excuse to entertain their kids and spend a couple hours in an air conditioned theater. It should be noted that it's another example of a hybrid release, as Paramount Pictures has also made the title available to stream with a subscription to Paramount+ – so once again we'll be curious to see how well it does when we look at the numbers next week.

There are far fewer positive things to say about the outcomes for the trio of other new releases this weekend: Martin Campbell's action flick The Protege starring Maggie Q; David Bruckner's horror film The Night House starring Rebecca Hall; and Lisa Joy's sci-fi thriller Reminiscence starring Hugh Jackman. They all provided audiences with the potential for very different cinematic experiences, but it seems that movie-goers responded to none of them – resulting in a 7-8-9 finishing in the Top 10 and all of them making under $3 million in their respective first three days.

The Night House and The Protege were smaller releases, put into less than 3,000 theaters nationwide, but the performance by Reminiscence is particularly rough. There is a very real chance that when the numbers are finalized that the movie will be ranked last among all of the titles that Warner Bros. has put out this year, which is not great – even though the film was only made with a mid-range budget of $68 million (according to Deadline). One has to recognize that mid/late August is famously a terrible period for the box office, as summer plans wrap up and the school year begins, but this is still rough to see. It's possible that things look much better for it on the HBO Max side of things, but we have no idea since the studio doesn't release traffic or new subscriber statistics.

Next weekend, as mentioned, audiences will be able to start getting in the fall/Halloween spirit a bit early, as Candyman will be playing in theaters nationwide. The numbers for horror movies have been all over the map recently, with John Krasinski's A Quiet Place Part II putting up huge numbers, and Rodo Sayagues' Don't Breathe 2 not performing nearly as well as its predecessor, but we'll see how everything turns out next Sunday.

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

Disneyland's Jungle Cruise has been a popular attraction since the very first day that the park opened, and its Skippers are some of the most popular cast members you'll find in the park. With the attraction being over 65 years old there is a long line of former cast members who have helmed the boats. And one of the very first recently went with his family to see the new movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, and the result was hilarious and adorable.

Nathanial Free posted a short video to Twitter which shows his grandfather, Leonard O'Reilly, performing classic jokes from the Jungle Cruise ride while he's positioned next to Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt's cardboard selves in a movie theater lobby. O'Reilly was a Skipper himself back in 1956, just a year after the park and the ride opened. Check it out.

While there might be a select few whose time on the Jungle Cruise predates even Leonard O'Reilly, he would have been in the very first group to present the Cruise in its comedic form. The Jungle Cruise was originally inspired by Disney's True Life Adventure documentary films and it was originally presented in a more nature documentary sort of format. Later the ride was updated to provide more humor, and that's when the jokes really began to fly.

The Jungle Cruise movie is currently available on Disney+ for an additional charge. You can use this link to sign up for the streaming service.

And several of those jokes made their way into the Jungle Cruise movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. Whatever Mr. O'Reilly thought of the movie itself, it had to be a surreal experience to see the job he had when he was young turned into a big screen movie in the first place. It also had to be exciting for the man's family. Apparently everybody went to the movies to see the movie with him.

But the legacy of this family and the Jungle Cruise is perhaps even more interwoven than this. I happened to connect Nathanial Free on Twitter with Kevin Lively, a former Jungle Cruise Skipper himself and a current Walt Disney Imagineer, and in doing so learned a potentially remarkable piece of information. Apparently, Leonard O'Reilly wasn't the only member of the family to Skipper on the Jungle Cruise, as his twin brother Ronald had the job as well. Not only that, but according to Leonard, it was his brother who came up with the attraction's most classic line, the "back side of water."

While such a thing would likely be impossible to ever confirm, I suppose the joke had to start somewhere, and the idea that we could be looking at a connection to the one joke you're guaranteed to hear any time you ride the Jungle Cruise, is pretty awesome. Either way, the Jungle Cruise Skipper had an a remarkable cruise in life, one that I'm sure he doesn't take for granite.

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

These days, there are so many bells and whistles on huge Disney movies like Jungle Cruise that we don’t always stop and get a sense of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into making an epic such as the recent release. While there are clearly some CGI scenes throughout the film starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, such as that massive waterfall, the actors also pulled off a major scene toward the end practically, and it’s quite impressive.

The scene we’re talking about is when Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson’s Lily and Frank must go underwater to pull a lever leading them to the Tears of the Moon. According to Jungle Cruise’s underwater cinematographer, Ian Seabrook, the pair used the power of their lung strength to actually hold their breath to capture the tense moment that was shot over two weeks.

When Ian Seabrook dove into the work that went into shooting this Jungle Cruise scene to Insider, the filmmaker shared that both Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt would have to hold their breath for 30 second intervals in the two locations they shot to get the scene done, including an underwater set in Atlanta, Georgia. Seabrook shared his experience with The Rock as follows:

It sounds like Dwayne Johnson really put his strength into filming the sequence, but he wasn’t the only one who impressed the cinematographer. Seabrook applauded Emily Blunt too, who apparently hadn’t done an underwater stunt before Jungle Cruise. In his words:

Next time you watch that scene, pay attention to the incredible practical work that Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt accomplished for the action film. It could not have been easy to be underwater that long during those shoots, but they absolutely nailed it according to their underwater cinematographer. Ian Seabrook has also been a part of the underwater scenes in other big movies like Deadpool 2, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and IT Chapter Two.

Jungle Cruise premiered late last month in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access to overall positive reception, following a previous delay brought on by COVID-19. If you would like to see the movie at home, you can subscribe to Disney+ using this link. The Disney movie will also be available to buy on more digital platforms later this month. Following Jungle Cruise, Disney is developing movies for its rides Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion, so stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more movie updates.

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

Having once been scheduled to come out in fall 2019, Jungle Cruise, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt’s first movie together, was finally released to the public at the end of July. Along with still playing in theaters, the Disney flick is also on Disney+’s Premier Access tier for $29.99, but for those of you who either aren’t subscribed to the Mouse House’s streaming service or don’t want to shell out that kind of money, you’re in luck! You’ll soon have other options for watching Jungle Cruise from the comfort of your own home.

Disney announced today that Jungle Cruise will arrive on “all major digital platforms” starting August 31, i.e. in a little over two weeks. Those of you who prefer physical media for movie-watching will be able to procure Jungle Cruise on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on November 16. The extras attached to the home release include five featurettes (including Expedition Mode, which provides fun facts, Easter eggs and trivia while watching the movie), outtakes and 11 deleted scenes.

This news comes after Jungle Cruise has finished its third weekend in theaters, with the movie having made over $154 million worldwide so far. It’s unclear how Jungle Cruise performed on Disney+ Premier Access (use this link to sign up for the streaming service if you’re not already subscribed), but it’s the fifth movie to be released on that tier, following Mulan, Raya and the Last Dragon, Cruella and Black Widow. While Disney CEO Bob Chapek hasn’t ruled out future Premier Access titles, it looks like Jungle Cruise will be the last movie to be put there for the foreseeable future, with the next Disney release on deck, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, playing exclusively in theaters for 45 days.

Based off the same-named attraction that’s been part of Disneyland since it opened in 1955, the World War I-set Jungle Cruise follows Dwayne Johnson’s Captain Frank Wolff and Emily Blunt’s Dr. Lily Houghton, the latter of whom hires the former to take her and her brother, Jack Whitehall’s MacGregor Houghton, on an expedition to find the Tree of Life. The movie’s cast also includes Jesse Plemons, Édgar Ramírez and Paul Giamatti, among others. The Commuter’s Jaume Collet-Serra directed the feature off of a script penned by Michael Green, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa.

Similar to how Ryan Reynolds revealed over the weekend that Disney wants to make Free Guy 2, Dwayne Johnson said at the beginning of August that he would be meeting with the Mouse House about a potential Jungle Cruise sequel. Naturally we’ll let you know if such a project gets greenlit, but there’s certainly no shortage of ideas Jungle Cruise 2 could explore. Maybe Disney is waiting to see how the first movie performs when it’s more widely available on home media before deciding one way or another on a sequel.

As for Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, Johnson will next appear alongside Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot in Netflix’s Red Notice and also re-teamed with Jaume Collet-Serra for next summer’s Black Adam. Meanwhile, Blunt is currently shooting the Amazon series The English and also recently signed onto a movie about Kate Warne, the first woman to join the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Keep track of movies arriving in the near future with our 2021 release schedule and 2022 release schedule.

Shawn Levy's Free Guy has had a long, strange road to the big screen. The project was one of the 20th Century Fox projects that saw its development and production play out amidst the blockbuster merger with Disney, and while the studio has consistently demonstrated confidence in the movie, that attitude has primarily been visible because of the constant release date delays during the COVID-19 pandemic. The video game-inspired film starring Ryan Reynolds was originally dated to come out on July 3, 2020, a.k.a. over a year ago, but now it is finally playing in theaters, and it appears to be doing quite well. Check out the numbers behind its opening weekend below, along with the rest of the Top 10, and join me after for analysis!

Unlike Craig Gillespie's Cruella and Cate Shortland's Black Widow, Disney made the decision not to make Free Guy one of their hybrid theatrical/streaming releases, and it seems that the strategy is successfully getting butts in seats. There were predictions last week (from Deadline, for example) that suggested the movie would be very fortunate to make as much as $20 million in its first three days, but the movie wound up demolishing those expectations with its $28.4 million haul. You may notice that total isn't much bigger than the amount that James Gunn's The Suicide Squad took in last weekend, but context explains why one is viewed a success and the other a disappointment. For starters there is the budget, as the DC Comics blockbuster cost at least $60 million more to make according to reported numbers; but far more significant is the fact that it's a comparison between established IP and an original feature.

Soon, however, Free Guy will itself be considered part of Disney's family of intellectual properties, as the studio has already expressed their satisfaction with the movie's performance. Late Saturday night, following on the heels of an impressive opening night, Ryan Reynolds announced to his followers on Twitter that interest in a sequel was already being expressed – though when exactly we may get a Free Guy 2 is unclear. The film itself still has a road ahead of it to become profitable (it may have cost less to make than The Suicide Squad, but it still carries a nine-digit price tag), but it appears to be on the right path.

With the market still depressed by the continued existence of COVID-19 (especially now due to the increasing Delta variant numbers), Free Guy will need to demonstrate some legs in order to be totally successful – and there will be a lot of industry eyes on it next week looking at its performance. This summer has seen a rough pattern emerge surrounding the biggest blockbuster releases, the issue being major profit drop-offs from weekend-to-weekend. Both Black Widow and Malcolm D. Lee's Space Jam: A New Legacy saw ticket sales fall off to the extreme after respectively winning box office crowns domestically, and while a number of analysts have blamed this on their hybrid distribution models, one can't ignore that Justin Lin's F9 suffered a similar fate in late June/early July without being available on streaming.

Will Free Guy be able to join F9, John Krasinski's A Quiet Place Part II, and Darren Lynn Bousman's Spiral: From The Book Of Saw as one of the few titles to keep the top spot two weekends in a row in summer 2021? We'll have to wait and see.

Staying on the subject of Hollywood blockbusters that have seen extreme falloff from one Friday-to-Sunday to the next, it's with extreme disappointment that we also have to report that The Suicide Squad is the latest movie to fall victim to the trend. Those who regularly follow box office news know that in normal times productions keep their fingers crossed that they will only see a 40 percent dip in box office in a sophomore weekend, but the latest film from the DC Extended Universe has become one of a handful of titles this summer to suffer far worse fates. The $7.5 million the James Gunn movie has made since this past Friday translates a 71 percent drop, which is not anything anybody related to or rooting for the film was hoping to see. It's possible that it is doing tremendously well streaming on HBO Max – getting high traffic and boosting subscriber numbers following a week of building buzz – but we have no idea if that's the case because the streaming service doesn't make a habit of releasing statistics.

Obviously part of the reason why The Suicide Squad dipped in the rankings is because this weekend saw a trio of notable new releases – and while Free Guy successfully beat out all of its competition, Rodo Sayagues' Don't Breathe 2 and Liesl Tommy's Respect had decent openings. In the case of the former, the numbers don't look all that great when you consider that Fede Alvarez's Don't Breathe made about $16 million more in its opening frame back in 2016, but independently it is more than on track to be profitable on paper thanks to the production's low budget (it's relatively inexpensive to shoot a movie that really only has two locations and films in Serbia). Respect was a bit more pricy to make, costing $55 million according to Variety, but it's also not exactly a title that you expect to open massive during the summer season. Could it have done better had United Artists decided to delay the release date until deep into awards season? Possibly, but that wasn't the road taken (it's worth noting that the schedule isn't exactly wide open).

Sitting right among the new releases and holding on tight to the Top 5 is also Jaume Collet-Serra's Jungle Cruise, which has done a solid job thus far avoiding the summer 2021 curse (despite the fact that it is presently available both in theaters and on Disney+ via Premier Access). The film didn't precisely have the most amazing second weekend, still falling 55 percent, but that's amazing compared to the other aforementioned blockbusters this season. Holding on to third place and only dropping one spot in the rankings, the movie has not only made $81.2 million to date domestically, but also $21.7 million abroad for a worldwide total of $138.6 million.

Looking ahead, we have another mixed bag of releases set to hit the big screen on Friday that should provide something for everybody. If you're looking for scares David Bruckner's The Night House should be your go-to; for action you can enjoy Martin Cambell's The Protege; for families there is Cal Brunker's Paw Patrol: The Movie; and those looking for a sci-fi mystery can take in Lisa Joy's Reminiscence. Our box office column will be back next Sunday to examine how things shift in the Top 10, so be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend then.

Emily Blunt and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s hit film Jungle Cruise has captivated audiences with an incredible adventure and fantastic chemistry between its two stars. The Rock recently sent out a message of thanks to the fans who have shown up to theaters to support the film despite the ongoing pandemic, and Jungle Cruise has done decently despite the odds. Blunt and Johnson have shown off their chemistry on and off-screen while promoting the movie, revealing gems like the actress' hilarious nickname for The Rock. Now, she has all the sick burns in new Jungle Cruise Interview outtakes, but her co-star totally loves it.

Press junkets for new films are usually a lot of fun for viewers, and the Jungle Cruise interviews have been an endless supply of clips of Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson being hilarious. Even in a pandemic where things are unusual due to health and safety protocols, it’s still been very successful, and fans have loved the film stars extracurricular activities promoting the new Disney flick. New interview outtakes, in fact, show off Blunt’s sense of humor, and there’s an Instagram post from The Rock to prove it:

We see the two in the video exchanging playful and hilarious jokes that were outtakes from various interviews the pair did for Jungle Cruise. The Rock does well, but Emily Blunt steals the show with her jokes about protein breath, Johnson learning "acting" as his biggest challenge on the film, plus the general way she made The Rock peel over with laughter throughout the video. The two obviously had a good time working together, and it shows.

The Rock loved the video and sent out a long message to go with it, highlighting that he’s never worked with someone who made him laugh as hard as Emily Blunt. There will never be a press junket that compares to the Jungle Cruise one in his eyes. Their chemistry is the main takeaway from Jungle Cruise, and it has me wanting to see the pair on-screen again.

After Jungle Cruise, it seems Emily Blunt will be heading to Amazon for her next film, where she will play an investigator in the 19th century in a production produced by her co-star! And of course, The Rock has Black Adam and a slew of other upcoming movies coming up. Hopefully, we see Emily Blunt and The Rock on-screen together again in the future, and maybe it will even be in a live-action Toy Story, an idea the pair had fun with. Until then, Jungle Cruise will is still there to rewatch Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson’s epic adventure.

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

The film industry has been scrambling for the last year and a half to simply figure out how to continue to do business. Many major releases have been, and continue to be simply delayed, in hopes that things will be better in the future. Other films have been sent to VOD and streaming services rather than theaters. Others have done both at the same time. Disney, however, took a very unique path, in releasing four films through Disney+ Premier Access. This put the movie on the streaming platform the same day it was in theaters, but also added an up charge to see the film, like a VOD platform. While there are no plans for any future Premier Access titles, Disney CEO Bob Chapek is leaving that door open.

Speaking on The Walt Disney Company's Q3 Earnings Call, CEO Bob Chapek talked about the way that the company has been handling movie distribution in different ways due to the global pandemic. While there were no plans announced to release any upcoming movies as Premier Access titles, Chapek was clear that it could still happen, as "all available options" remain on the table. According to the CEO...

Following this statement, Bob Chapek ran through most of the major releases for Disney's remaining fiscal year and fiscal year 2022. Each of them was specifically discussed as a theatrical release, with no mention of Disney+, so at least for the moment it seems that's the plan for these movies, but the company clearly wants to leave the door open to the possibility they could reverse course if there's a feeling that's where consumer behavior is trending.

One movie that seems unlikely to go to Premier Access is Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. When asked why the film isn't taking the same path to market as Black Widow, Bob Chapek explained that part of the reason is specifically to see what happens when a similar movie takes a different path. It's basically an experiment to see how two Marvel movies fair when they go through different channels. After Disney has the data on this, the company can make better decisions about what to do with future movies.

And this is likely why Premier Access hasn't been written off yet. If the data comes back and it looks like Premier Access really works for Disney, then we're more likely to see it again. It doesn't appear that the plan is to make Premier Access the new normal right now, but it still could be down the road.

Emily Blunt can currently be seen floating down the Amazon River with Dwayne Johnson in Disney's Jungle Cruise movie, and it seems the actress had so much fun that she's decided to do it again, sort of. Blunt has reportedly signed on to a new movie that will see her play the first woman to ever join the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The movie won't co-star The Rock but his Seven Bucks Productions will produce the movie, and the story won't take place on the Amazon, but the movie will be seen on Amazon.

While the movie appears to be officially untitled, Deadline is reporting Emily Blunt will play the role of real-life detective Kate Warne for the new Amazon Prime Video venture. The streaming service acquired the rights to the new project following what is being called a highly competitive auction. In addition to Hiram Garcia, Dwayne Johnson, and Dany Garcia via Seven Bucks Productions, the movie is also being produced by Blunt's own Ledbury Productions and Kristina Sorensen Productions. Gustin Nash, writer of Youth in Revolt and Charlie Bartlett wrote the script and is executive producer. Kimberly Bialek is overseeing for Seven Bucks Productions.

The movie is being called an action adventure story, and so in that regard will also have something in common with Jungle Cruise, but as Kate Warne's detective career was during the 1850s and 1860s in America, the setting will be quite different. Warne investigated early assassination attempts against Abraham Lincoln, worked as a Union intelligence officer during the Civil War, and handled numerous other well known cases, any or all of which could be the basis for the new film.

It truly doesn't seem to be random coincidence that Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt are working together again, even if it only is behind the camera. The pair clearly had a great time working together on Jungle Cruise, the fun they had together during the promotional phase was obvious. They're also reportedly involved in another upcoming film where they will co-star together. And we know there are already early talks about a Jungle Cruise sequel happening, though nothing has been officially confirmed.

Seven Bucks Productions has been sharing the love pretty evenly when it comes to working with the major streaming services. One of Dwayne Johnson's next big movies is the Netflix action film Red Notice with Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot. Seven Bucks produced the recently released Behind the Attraction documentary series for Disney+, and Dwayne Johnson is already working with Amazon on another project, Red One which plans to launch some sort of holiday themed cinematic Universe.

As a fan of Emily Blunt and detective stories in the same way I'm a fan of Emily Blunt and movies based on Disneyland theme park rides, I'll certainly be looking forward to this one. There isn't even a director attached yet so it will likely be a while before this one really moves forward.

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

Disney's Jungle Cruise movie, like many films coming out these days, is having an interesting time in the marketplace. The film was released in theaters but was also dropped on Disney+ as a Premier Access product for the streaming service, meaning fans could watch it at home instead of in theaters for $30 on top of their subscription fee. When those two numbers are combined, Jungle Cruise had a pretty good opening weekend and while the movie's second weekend had an expected drop, Dwayne Johnson is happy with the movie's performance, and he's thanking everybody who has seen it.

In a quick video for Instagram Dwayne Johnson thanks everybody who has made Jungle Cruise the success that it is, getting the movie over $100 million at the global box office and, while he doesn't drop any specifics regarding Jungle Cruise purchases on Disney+, he seems quite happy with them as well.

In the text of the post and in the video Dwayne Johnson talks about the restrictions that have been springing back up due to the delta variant of the coronavirus. While going to the movie theater is still an option for the most part, compared to a year ago, it doesn't mean doing so is easy as depending on where you live you could have numerous restrictions in place. Still, people are making the trip and The Rock just wants to say than you.

Of course, for those who don't want to go to a theater, there is the Disney+ Premier Access option. You can watch the movie at home, and for families of any size the $30 price tag is still going to be cheaper than hitting a theater. One interesting thing Dwayne Johnson points out is that, since those paying for Premier Access get the movie added to the full Disney+ library, many have been watching the movie more than once. According to The Rock...

The fact that people are watching Jungle Cruise multiple times certainly indicates that they like the movie and that's certainly valuable information. While Jungle Cruise got only vaguely positive reviews from critics, the response from fans has been much more overwhelming. People really like this movie. It's seen as a breezy fun adventure film and clearly it's fun enough to be worth seeing more than once in quick succession.

Jungle Cruise was always seen as a potential franchise and we know that early sequel talks have already begun. Usually box office totals go a long way to determining if sequels get made but in this case it seems the calculation might be more complex. In the end, the simple fact that people are watching the movie, some of them a lot, might be enough to make Jungle Cruise 2: You're in De-Nile, happen.

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

If you are like hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other moviegoers who went to the theater or watched Jungle Cruise streaming upon its release in July 2021 and you want to watch some more adventure or epic tales, then you’ve come to the right place. The Disney throwback pulp action film starring Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson as the most unlikely pair yet one people just can’t get enough of is full of twists and turns and spectacular action sequences that leave you wanting more river boats, more mythical quests, and more characters whose very survival depends on a person they cannot stand.

While we cannot provide you with a boat or map that will take you to the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, we can help you find exciting and thrilling movies from yesteryear and today that will certainly hold you over until we find out if there will be a Jungle Cruise 2, (or The Jungle Cruise).

Raiders Of The Lost Ark (Showtime)

Steven Spielberg’s 1981 pulpy adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark follows swashbuckling archeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) as he is hired by the United States government to track down the mysterious Ark of the Covenant before Adolf Hitler and his fanatic Nazi followers can get to it first and use its powers for world domination.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Jungle Cruise: It is hard to watch Jungle Cruise and not immediately press play on Raiders of the Lost Ark as soon as the credits roll on Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt’s awesome adventure. With hunts for lost treasure, evil villains, and large-scale action set pieces that feel like a ride at an amusement park, this quintessential ‘80s movie is full of action, drama, and one remarkable hero in Indiana Jones.

Stream Raiders of the Lost Ark on Showtime.

Rent/Buy Raiders of the Lost Ark on Amazon.

The Mummy (HBO Max)

Released in 1999, Stephen Sommers’ throwback adventure film The Mummy follows an Egyptian expedition consisting of bookworm Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz), her brother Jonathan Carnahan (John Hannah), and the dashing Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) as they come face-to-face with the unspeakable horror of Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), who has been resurrected thousands of years after he was buried alive and placed under a curse.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Jungle Cruise: As CinemaBlend previously pointed out, there are a lot of times where Jungle Cruise felt like a remake of The Mummy. These comparisons range from the bickering and banter between each film’s leads to both movies taking place in the early 20th Century to even the amazing opening narrations in each. Most of all, both are a fun way to spend a couple of hours.

Stream The Mummy on HBO Max.

Rent/Buy The Mummy on Amazon.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl (Disney+)

Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which was released in 2003 and kicked off a massive franchise, introduces audiences to Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) as he and blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) team up to save Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) from a band of undead buccaneers.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Jungle Cruise: Like Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is based on a Disney ride and features callbacks to its inspiration while also telling a fun and engaging story where the heroes must vanquish a cursed band of antagonists. Throw in some dynamic leads with electric chemistry and you’re all set.

Stream Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl on Disney+.

Rent/Buy Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl on Amazon.

Romancing The Stone (Amazon Rental)

One of the best Robert Zemeckis movies, 1984’s Romancing the Stone is a romp of a good time that follows successful yet lonely romance writer Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) as she heads into the heart of the Colombian jungle to save her sister from being killed by a group of antiquities smugglers. Together with the brash and dashing Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas), Joan sets out on a thrilling and memorably journey.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Jungle Cruise: At the heart of Romancing the Stone and Jungle Cruise are stories about two people from completely different backgrounds and temperaments who form an unlikely yet unbreakable bond despite the odds. It doesn’t hurt that both of these films have maniacal villains hot on their tails throughout and plenty of swinging from ropes and vines.

Rent/Buy Romancing the Stone on Amazon.

The African Queen (Amazon Prime)

Directed by John Huston, the 1951 romantic adventure film The African Queen follows British missionary Rose Sayer (Katherine Hepburn) and alcoholic boat captain Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) as they evade capture (or worse) at the hands of German forces at the start of the first World War.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Jungle Cruise: One of the best movies on Amazon Prime, The African Queen is a perfect choice for anyone wanting more movies like Jungle Cruise. While there are no mythical flowers or cursed conquistadors, the movie does hit a lot of the same notes as the new Disney film and has one of the best on-screen pairings with Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart.

Stream The African Queen on Amazon.

The Fountain (Tubi)

Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain features three intertwined narratives that all center on one central idea: the quest for immortality. Told through the eyes of a 16th Century conquistador, a present-day scientist, and a 26th Century astronaut (all played by Hugh Jackman), this epic love story explores just how far someone will go in order to save someone they love.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Jungle Cruise: There aren’t any river boats (or Germans) in The Fountain, but a third of the movie is devoted to the story of a conquistador traveling into the heart of the jungle to find the mythical fountain of youth with hopes of saving his queen. This is quite similar to the backstory of Jungle Cruise’s Aguirre (Édgar Ramírez) who became forever trapped in the rainforest when his quest to save his daughter went awry.

Stream The Fountain on Tubi.

Rent/Buy The Fountain on Amazon.

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (Amazon Rental)

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle follows a group of four teenagers as they are trapped in a mysterious video game that transports them to a dangerous land where they must survive all sorts of hazards and multiple puzzles if they want to beat the game and make it back home.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Jungle Cruise: Fans of Dwayne Johnson’s performance in Jungle Cruise will love his turn in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle due to comedic timing and all around badassery. It’s silly and campy at times but this movie is a blast and a great way to spend a family movie night.

Rent/Buy Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle on Amazon.

The Mosquito Coast (Amazon Rental)

The 1986 drama The Mosquito Coast follows the idealistic Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) as he uproots his family and sets out for a Caribbean Island where he plans to create a utopia free of the consumerism and pitfalls of modern life in America. His plan, however, is inherently flawed and puts his life, as well as his family, in grave danger.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Jungle Cruise: The Mosquito Coast isn’t as cheery or upbeat as Jungle Cruise but it does touch on some of the same themes, topics, and locales. Both movies center on characters obsessed with achieving their goal, no matter what they stand to lose in the process while also featuring people from completely different walks of life (and civilizations) meeting for the first time.

Rent/Buy The Mosquito Coast on Amazon.

Fitzcarraldo (Tubi)

Werner Herzog’s 1982 epic Fitzcarraldo tells the story of ambitious and opera-obsessed European Brian Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) as he sets out to make his dream come true of building a music hall in his small Peruvian city. To generate enough money to fund his project, Fitzgerald decides to enter the rubber industry, but there is one catch: the massive boat he wishes to use is on the other side of a mountain. With the help of a local native tribe, the eager man comes one step closer to reality.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Jungle Cruise: If you thought you would never see anything crazier than a German submarine traversing the Amazon River in Jungle Cruise wait until you see the cast of Fitzcarraldo drag a massive ship up and down a mountain range. In his novel Herzog on Herzog, Werner Herzog revealed that he and the production crew built a 320-ton steamboat and moved it over a hill.

Stream Fitzcarraldo on Tubi.

Rent/Buy Fitzcarraldo on Amazon.

Aguirre, The Wrath Of God (Tubi)

Also directed by Werner Herzog, the 1972 historical drama Aguirre, the Wrath of God follows ruthless Spanish conquistador Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski) as he pushes through the heart of the jungle in search of the mythical city of gold known as El Dorado. As the vicious leader of an expedition travels deeper into the jungle he becomes less and less attached to reality, eventually descending into madness.

Why it’s worth checking out if you like Jungle Cruise: This 1972 epic features the first on-screen portrayal of the real-life Don Lope de Aguirre, a figure that would show up again in Jungle Cruise but it’s hard to say which version is more insane by the end of the tale. Much darker than the new Disney movie, this Werner Herzog classic is a grim exploration of what obsession and greed can do to a man.

Stream Aguirre, the Wrath Of God on Tubi.

Rent/Buy Aguirre, the Wrath Of God on Amazon.

These are just some of the movies that are perfect for anyone who wants more epic adventures after finishing Jungle Cruise. If you want even more great stories, check out other titles that happen to be the some of the best movies on Netflix.

Let's be blunt: this past weekend was a serious bummer for the box office. James Gunn's The Suicide Squad is the best blockbuster we've seen released this summer, replete with a fantastic adventure and phenomenal ensemble of characters, and buzz has been building up for weeks – but now that the numbers are in, they disappointing. The DC film did manage to become the latest feature to earn the title "Number One Movie In North America," but the ticket sales don't properly represent the quality of the movie, and there is now a lot of rumination going on in the industry figuring out why that is. Check out the full Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis.

Given that The Suicide Squad was made for a reported budget of $185 million, according to Variety, these results are obviously not ideal – and not to beat a dead horse, but they look particularly bad compared to what David Ayer's Suicide Squad did back in 2016 (the critically reject and subsequently disowned film made $133.7 million in its first three days). Of course, there are a number of factors that the new release had to deal with that its predecessor didn't, both externally and as part of the studio's distribution strategy.

The big and unignorable element in play is the on-going pandemic. COVID-19 numbers were going down a month ago, allowing for record-breaking hits like Justin Lin's F9 and Cate Shortland's Black Widow, but the surge of the Delta variant has changed the national outlook and is making a bigger impact on our daily lives. It's little surprise that movie-going activity would be affected, and it seems to be represented in the box office figures for The Suicide Squad.

That external, uncontrollable influence very much intersects with the other major one in play: the film's availability via streaming. Like all of the other titles on Warner Bros.' slate in 2021, The Suicide Squad has been released in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously, with the film hitting the subscription service for a 31 day engagement starting at 7:00pm PST last Thursday. As has been discussed at length in previous installments of this box office column, the allure of that format's convenience is always going to be powerful – even with blockbusters best seen on the biggest screen possible – but that convenience is only more appealing as the country's issues with COVID continue.