Variety has learned that Jesse Plemons (Game Night) will star as a villain opposite Dwayne Johnson (Rampage) in Disney‘s Jungle Cruise, following the recent announcement that Edgar Ramirez also joined the project as a mysterious villain in the upcoming adventure film. The live-action film, based on Disney’s popular theme park attraction and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Non-Stop, Run All Night), also stars Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place) and Jack Whitehall (The Bad Education Movie).
In Jungle Cruise, Johnson plays a boat captain who takes sister (Blunt) and her brother (Whitehall) on a mission to find a tree believed to possess healing powers. Wild animals and a competing expedition figure into the proceedings. Edgar Ramirez (The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story) is said to be one of the movie’s villains, a character with a conquistador background.
The project will serve as a reunion for Ramirez and Blunt, who previously worked together on The Girl on the Train. Ramirez has also starred in other high-profile projects including Netflix’s Bright with Will Smith, Gold alongside Matthew McConaughey, and Hands of Stone opposite Robert De Niro.
Jungle Cruise‘s script by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay (Star Trek Beyond) was recently rewritten by Michael Green (Logan, Blade Runner 2049). Johnson is set to produce alongside his Seven Bucks Productions partners Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia, as well as frequent collaborator Beau Flynn (San Andreas, Baywatch) of Flynn Picture Co. John Davis and John Fox of Davis Entertainment will also produce.
Jungle Cruise will join the ranks of films Disney has created based on their theme park attractions, including The Country Bears, The Haunted Mansion, Mission to Mars, Tomorrowland, and the most popular, Pirates of the Caribbean. Disney plans to develop the film as a possible franchise in the same vein as Pirates of the Caribbean. The film is slated to begin production in May.
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