Anaconda (1997 film)

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Main otherTemplate:Template otherTemplate:Main other Anaconda is a 1997 action adventure horror film directed by Luis Llosa and starring Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Eric Stoltz, Jonathan Hyde, and Owen Wilson. An international co-production between the United States and Brazil, the film focuses on a documentary film crew in the Amazon rainforest that is led by a snake hunter who is hunting down a giant, legendary green anaconda.

The film received generally mixed-to-negative reviews, but was a box office success, and has become a 1990s cult classic. It is the first installment in the Anaconda film series.

Plot

On the Amazon River, a poacher hides from an unknown creature in his boat. When it breaks through the boat and attempts to trap the poacher, he commits suicide by shooting himself to prevent it from killing him.

Meanwhile, a film crew is shooting a documentary about the Shirishamas, a long-lost indigenous Amazonian tribe; the ensemble consists of director Terri Flores, cameraman and childhood friend Danny Rich, production manager Denise Kalberg, Denise's boyfriend and sound engineer Gary Dixon, narrator Warren Westridge, anthropologist Professor Steven Cale, and boat skipper Mateo. The group encounters stranded Paraguayan snake hunter Paul Serone, who convinces them he can help them find the Shirishamas. Most of the crew are uncomfortable around Serone, and Cale clashes with him several times about Shirishama lore. Eventually, Cale is stung by a wasp, and an allergic reaction swells up his throat and leaves him unconscious. Serone performs an emergency cricothyrotomy, seemingly saving Cale's life, but soon after takes over the boat, forcing the group to help him achieve his true goal: hunting down a giant record-breaking green anaconda he had been tracking, which he believes that he can capture alive.

Danny, Mateo and Serone search the wreckage of the poacher's boat. A photograph in an old newspaper reveals that Mateo, Serone, and the poacher were working together to hunt animals, including snakes. Leaving the poacher's ship, Mateo falls into the water, where the giant male warrior anaconda, measuring Template:Convert, ambushes and kills him, while the other two return to their boat, unaware of Mateo's fate. Serone manipulates Gary into helping him ensnare the creature which might get him one million dollar in price. That night, he uses a dead monkey as bait to catch the creature, which proceeds to emerge and attack the crew. He attempts to capture the snake, but it coils around Gary, crushing him. Serone thwarts Terri's attempt to shoot the anaconda to rescue Gary, whom it devours, devastating Denise. The crew overpowers Serone and ties him up as punishment.

The next day, the boat becomes jammed near a waterfall, and Terri, Danny, and Westridge enter the water to winch it loose. Denise confronts Serone and attempts to kill him to avenge Gary's death, but he ambushes and strangles her with his legs before dumping her corpse into the river. When the creature returns, Westridge distracts it long enough for Terri and Danny to retreat while he ascends the waterfall. Serone breaks free during the attack and assaults Danny. The snake mounts a tree branch and attacks Westridge, unintentionally uprooting the tree, and he perishes in the subsequent fall. The tree falls onto the boat, subsequently awakening Cale, and Serone, Danny, and Terri escape by jumping into the river. The snake resurfaces and attacks Danny, but Terri, having reboarded the boat, rescues him by shooting one of its eyes out. Serone, still believing he can capture it alive, reboards the boat and pulverizes her. Cale rescues her by stabbing Serone with a tranquilizer dart before losing consciousness again himself, and Danny pummels Serone into the river.

Serone eventually catches up to the group and captures Terri and Danny, drenching them with animal blood to bait a second, much larger female Queen anaconda, measuring Template:Convert; it attacks the pair, slowly suffocating them. He tries to catch it in a net, but it breaks free and attacks him, eventually swallowing him whole, which the pair observe while escaping their respective bonds. It chases Terri into a building, where she encounters a nest full of newborn anacondas, then regurgitates the still-alive, but partially digested Serone and chases her up a smokestack. Danny pins its tail to the ground with a pickaxe and ignites a fire below the smokestack, setting the snake ablaze; the resulting explosion sends the burning anaconda flying out of the building and into the water. As Terri and Danny recuperate on a nearby dock, the creature resurfaces, but he slaughters it with an axe to the head.

Afterward, the pair reunites with Cale, who begins recuperating on the boat. While floating downriver, the trio locates the Shirishama tribe they were originally seeking and, realizing Serone was right, begins filming their documentary.

Cast

• Jennifer Lopez as Terri Flores
• Ice Cube as Danny Rich
• Jon Voight as Paul Serone
• Eric Stoltz as Dr. Steven Cale
• Jonathan Hyde as Warren Westridge
• Owen Wilson as Gary Dixon
• Kari Wuhrer as Denise Kalberg
• Vincent Castellanos as Mateo
• Danny Trejo as Poacher
• Frank Welker and Gary A. Hecker as Anaconda (voices)

Music

Soundtrack

Randy Edelman composed and conducted the film's soundtrack, released by Edel America Records.

Track listing

1. Main Title (4:45)
2. Watching and Waiting (4:43)
3. Night Attack (2:47)
4. This Must Be Heaven (1:39)
5. Down River (2:43)
6. Seduction (3:27)
7. Travelogue (2:45)
8. Baiting the Line (2:47)
9. My Beautiful Anna... (conda) (2:54)
10. The Totem's Scared Ground (2:26)
11. Sarone's Last Stand (3:00)

Reception

Box office

The film opened at No. 1 with $16.6 million in its first weekend and remained at the top spot in its following week. In total, Anaconda went on to gross $136.8 million worldwide.

Critical response

Template:Rotten Tomatoes prose Template:Metacritic film prose Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.

Film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film a mixed 2 out of a possible 4 stars, criticizing the film's "hokey" special effects and "expositionless" script but complimented the film's use of Brazilian locale and Voight's campy performance. Roger Ebert awarded the film 3+1⁄2 out of 4 stars and called it a "slick, scary, funny Creature Feature, beautifully photographed and splendidly acted in high adventure style".

Despite the initial negative reception, Anaconda has since become a cult classic, often viewed as being so-bad-it's-good. The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made.

Accolades

The film was nominated for six Razzie Awards in 1998 including Worst Picture (which lost to The Postman), Worst Actor (Jon Voight; which went to Kevin Costner for The Postman), Worst Director (awarded to Costner for The Postman), Worst Screenplay (lost to The Postman), Worst New Star ("the animatronic anaconda"; which went to Dennis Rodman for Double Team) and Worst Screen Couple (Voight and "the animatronic anaconda"; where they lost to Rodman and Jean-Claude Van Damme for Double Team).Template:User-generated inline It was also nominated for two Saturn Awards including Best Actress (Jennifer Lopez; who lost to Jodie Foster for Contact) and Best Horror Film (which went to The Devil's Advocate). It won two Stinkers Awards including Worst Supporting Actor and Worst Fake Accent for Jon Voight (who also won the latter award for Most Wanted).

Award	Category	Subject	Results
Golden Raspberry Award	Worst Picture	Verna Harrah	Template:Nom
		Carole Little	Template:Nom
		Leonard Rabinowitz	Template:Nom
	Worst Director	Luis Llosa	Template:Nom
	Worst Screenplay	Hans Bauer	Template:Nom
		Jim Cash	Template:Nom
		Jack Epps Jr.	Template:Nom
	Worst Actor	Jon Voight	Template:Nom
	Worst Screen Couple		Template:Nom
		The animatronic anaconda	Template:Nom
	Worst New Star		Template:Nom
Saturn Award	Best Actress	Jennifer Lopez	Template:Nom
	Best Horror or Thriller Film		Template:Nom
Stinkers Bad Movie Award	Worst Supporting Actor	Jon Voight	Template:Win
	Worst Fake Accent		Template:Win

Legacy

The broadcast of the movie during primetime viewing on South African television station e.tv has become a national running gag, with the station airing the movie several times every year since the mid-2000s.

Other media

Sequels

A sequel, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, was released to theaters in 2004. Two more films follows with a direct-to-video release, Anaconda 3: Offspring (2008) and Anacondas: Trail of Blood (2009).

Crossover

Lake Placid vs. Anaconda (2015), a crossover film with the Lake Placid film series.

Even though no characters from the first film appear in the sequels, the events of the first film are referenced by the character Cole Burris in the second film, when he says he knows a man (Dr. Steven Cale) and another man (Danny Rich) that took a crew down to the Amazon, where they were attacked by snakes; in Lake Placid vs. Anaconda, character Will "Tully" Tull describes the same incident of the snakes in the Amazon to Reba, without explicitly mentioning the characters.

Remake

On March 1, 2024, a Chinese-produced remake was released.

Reboot

In January 2020, Sony Pictures announced a reboot is in development and screenwriter Evan Daugherty was hired to write the reboot film. In 2023, Tom Gormican was announced to direct the film. In August 2024, Variety reported that Jack Black and Paul Rudd were in early talks to star in the film, which was said to focus on a group of friends who seek to remake the original 1997 film. Gormican would also co-write with Kevin Etten. Brad Fuller and Andrew Form would produce through their Fully Formed Entertainment company. Daniela Melchior joined the cast a month later.

See also

• List of killer snake films

External links

• Template:First word/ Template:Trim at IMDbTemplate:EditAtWikidata
• Template:First word Template:PAGENAMEBASE at Rotten TomatoesTemplate:EditAtWikidataTemplate:Main other
• Template:First word Anaconda at MetacriticTemplate:EditAtWikidata
• Template:Trim/ Anaconda at Box Office Mojo