New ‘Mary Poppins’ Emily Blunt joins Dwayne Johnson for Disney’s ‘Jungle Cruise’
Variety is reporting that Emily Blunt has signed on to star opposite Dwayne Johnson (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) in Disney’s Jungle Cruise, which is slated to be the first live-action film loosely based on the Walt Disney World ride of the same name.
Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows) is directing the adventure feature with a script from Academy Award-nominee Michael Green (Logan), who recently completed rewriting a screenplay from the writing duo of J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay.
Production is slated to begin in May, which means this will likely be Blunt’s only major project this year before she begins work on the Edge of Tomorrow sequel with Tom Cruise.
Blunt currently has three films set to release with the animated Sherlock Gnomes arriving in theaters in March, then the John Krasinski-helmed horror A Quiet Place in April, and finally, the long-awaited Mary Poppins Returns on Christmas Day.
Jungle Cruise has been likened to Indiana Jones and, as Variety mentions “The African Queen starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn and hope to see the similar kind of chemistry with this pairing.
“[It’s] full on adventure,” Johnson stated during the interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Think Indiana Jones — those kinds of adventures. I’m very, very excited about it.”
As for working with Disney on the project, Johnson had nothing but positive things to say about the company and Jungle Cruise.
“This is where I really started to understand the power of Disney, just in terms of the deep dives that they do with their projects — with all of their projects,” Johnson said. “Because obviously they’re a studio and publicly traded, but specifically with projects like this where it’s based off a ride and based off an beloved attraction, like Pirates [of the Caribbean], so, so much goes into the work. And it’s so exciting.”
Disney has not set a release date yet.
Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins
