Disney's Jungle Cruisestarring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt is a film based on the Disney World ride of the same name. Over the years, Disney has produced a number of films based on attractions at Disney theme parks, with wildly varying results.
Since 1997, Disney has produced film adaptations of their theme park attractions, over a dozen in total, some of which have become beloved classics, while others are despised or forgotten. Among successes and failures, what makes the difference, and where might Jungle Cruise land on the scale?
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The first film based on a theme park ride was Tower of Terror in 1997, adapted from the famed drop tower ride which debuted three years earlier. The film was released straight to TV, the only ride movie to never make it to theaters. Interestingly, the ride was originally based around The Twilight Zone, but the film has no connection to the classic series. Tower of Terror received mixed reviews, landing a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes, but a fan base is out there. Some were even disappointed to find the film is not available on Disney+. Rumors of the recent months suggest that another film based on the Tower ride might be in the works from MCU mainstay Scarlett Johansson.
The early 2000s featured numerous ride movies, many of which failed outright. Following Tower of Terror in this genre were 2000's Mission To Mars and 2002's The Country Bears. Both films were despised by critics, massive commercial flops and were nominated for the satirical Razzie awards in their respective years. Mission To Mars is an utterly unoriginal space film directed surprisingly poorly by Brian De Palma. The film was praised for its visuals, but panned for everything else. The Country Bears is a bizarre comedy centered around reuniting the band from the theme park attraction. The plot hangs together like a bad episode of Scooby-Doo and the acting was roundly criticized, but the animatronics were good enough to earn praise from all who weren't utterly terrified of them.
After two massive failures, Disney was reticent to release another ride adaptation to the big screen, but screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and producer Jerry Bruckheimer brought forward a script for a supernatural twist on the long-dormant pirate genre. Pirates of the Caribbean was a big risk at the time, expected to be a flop by most of the era's film press and even the studio heads. The film shattered box office records, became internationally beloved, and spawned a decades-long franchise. The first Pirates films were directed by visionary Gore Verbinski who created an instantly identifiable world and cast of characters. Disney studio head Michael Eisner was famously opposed to the film's release, even encouraging filmmakers to remove more specific references to the ride.
The Pirates films have released intermittently to diminishing returns in both critical and box office reception. The first three films are almost universally beloved and stand out as the clear best films to come out of Disney theme park attractions. Films of the genre released since the sudden uptick in quality include The Haunted Mansion, an awful comedy released a few months after Curse of the Black Pearl, and Tomorrowland, a 2015 science fiction which flopped but earned mixed critical buzz. Haunted Mansion saw some success financially but was despised by critics and audiences, it still failed to reach the dizzying heights of Pirates. Attraction based cinema has never managed to regain the success of the first few Pirates of the Caribbean films, but Disney is trying again with Jungle Cruise.
Almost a dozen films and a full gradient from success to failure later, Jungle Cruise seems poised to be the next shot at ride movie success. The film was initially proposed to be released way back in 2007 and starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen of Toy Story fame. After delays, rewrites, casting changes, and the universal waylaying as a result of Covid-19, the film's current incarnation seems to be a love letter to adventure films like The African Queen. The default method of these ride movies is a layer cake of influence, generally books or films inspire the ride, which inspires a film, which takes inspiration from the original works at the heart of the ride. Pirate fiction in general inspired the ride, so when it came time to create a film based on the ride, it took inspiration from works like On Stranger Tides.
The fact of Disney attraction adaptations is that there is no silver bullet to create success, with few exceptions, a great film can transcend the label of its source material. Pirates of the Caribbean could exist without the ride, in fact some rumors suggest that the initial concepts appeared as an adaptation of The Secret of Monkey Island, a beloved LucasArts adventure game. The Country Bears, on the other hand, is based entirely on the characters and plot of the attraction and that worked out poorly. Perhaps the lesson is a fairly simple one, making movies out of theme park rides isn't actually a good idea, but a great film can be made out of absolutely anything.
Disney ride movies have managed to be great despite themselves, the answer to whether they can create another good movie out of a ride is a firm yes, if the filmmakers find what good is there to be made. Jungle Cruise could very well be fantastic, but whether it works or not, it will do so on its own merits.
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