Rotten Tomatoes: 32% (34 reviews) with 5.20 in average rating

Metacritic: 43/100 (20 critics)

As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie. It's structured like this: quote first, source second. Beware, some contain spoilers.

While the new film dutifully serves up the callbacks you’d expect, you never get a sense of why these buddies connected to this property more than any other. It’s enough to make me wish I could have seen Doug’s The Anaconda instead. Sure, his “indie-style” project seems to feature a nonsense plot, amateurish acting and extremely questionable action. But at least it would be a labor of love. Gormican’s Anaconda is just a big-budget IP extension trying to pretend it’s something sweeter and scrappier than it is. You don’t need to fall prey to its pretense.

-Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter

“Anaconda” constricts its premise a little tighter as it moves along (if only because the absurdity ratchets up in a way that forces the film to adopt a clearer sense of itself), and there are some undeniably amusing bits of stupidity along the way. The post-modern stuff tends to fall flat, but, say, the sequence where Jack Black runs for his life with a regurgitated hog strapped to his back is hard to deny. And honestly, all I’ve ever asked of a movie — any movie — is that it make at least two jokes at Jon Voight’s expense, and on that score I have no choice but to acknowledge that Gormican’s meta-sequel delivers, if only just. Still, this self-reflexive Hollywood sendup is so slapdash and unsure of itself that it ultimately feels less like a bad in-joke than a case of a snake eating its own tail.

-David Ehrlich, IndieWire: C

The movie could have really used some of that anarchic, industry-skewering “Tropic Thunder” energy. The only risk taken here was asking Sony — plus any surviving members of the original cast — to poke fun at themselves, which only goes so far when the film has no fangs.

-Peter Debruge, Variety

Anaconda is a disappointing follow-up for Gormican, who cannot crack the code on Sony's bewildering aquatic not-really-horror reboot. A cast of proven funny people are lost in a thick brush of hacky bits and ineffective storytelling, unable to machete their way through to a redeeming climax. There are brief bursts of creature-feature excitement and belly-tickling humor, but way more stretches of bafflingly unclear ambitions that feel like they're struggling to keep the "movie within a movie" gimmick afloat. It's Anaconda without the aqua-horror chills, throwback practical effects, and midnight-movie entertainment — what an odd choice.

-Matt Donato, IGN: 4 out of 10 "bad"

If “Anaconda” had actually been made for $40,000 — no stars, all new faces — its pluckiness might have shined through and a message of some kind might actually have been made. Or at least, to quote Gormican’s movie, “Themes!” Instead we get a movie where big name actors punch downward, at the helpless “Anaconda” movies, and at audiences who like “Anaconda” movies, and at all the low-budget filmmakers who work very hard to make good movies, even the schlocky ones. When all is said and done, it can’t hold a candle to all the genuine, ultra-low budget, unapologetic claptrap it’s lampooning. Well, except for “Anacondas: Trail of Blood.” They can’t all be winners. The new “Anaconda” proves that.

-William Bibbiani, TheWrap

Regrettably, the one star of Anaconda that gets the shortest shrift is the most important one: the snake. While the film features some monstrous attacks, they play out like something out of an especially uninspired SNL digital short. Sure, the original film and its increasingly lower-budgeted sequels may be funny, but they still pay respect to their creature-feature roots. If Gormican and company had more seriously considered why this particular piece of I.P. continues to resonate, the film may have potentially balanced the horror and comedy elements in a manner that would have satisfied both fans and newcomers to the series.

-Mark Hanson, Slant: 2/4

Rudd and Black make the new Anaconda easy enough to accept as a comedy with a dash of clunky effects-based creature action, rather than a full-blown horror-comedy. Intense fandom of the earlier film isn’t necessary to have a good-enough time at this one, and Gormican deserves some credit for smuggling a mid-2000s-style studio comedy back into theaters under the guise of IP (the universal desire for which also gets shouted out here, naturally). Anaconda never reaches the delirious heights of Steve Martin’s similarly themed comedy Bowfinger. But it shares more DNA with that movie than some silly giant snake.

-Jesse Hassenger, The Guardian: 3/5

Anaconda may be getting the benefit of the doubt here because of how few studio comedies make it to theaters. In another era, it might easily have gotten lost in a wave of post-modern updates that included The Brady Bunch and Starsky & Hutch. Its plot offers few surprises, but its simple foundations and character motivations give Rudd and Black so much room to play that it’s an amiable time. The two stars keep the energy and charisma in strong supply, while their film uses low expectations to its advantage, knowing that a good comedy doesn’t need to squeeze too hard.

-Matt Schimkowitz, The A.V. Club: B–

Anaconda’s early scenes, set in Buffalo and seemingly shot there, look appropriately shabby; the interiors are cluttered and drab, and filled with overexposed daylight pouring in from unshaded windows. For a couple of minutes, Rudd and Black’s characters get to act like authentic friends who’ve lost touch and reconnected over their mutual love of movies, over this art form’s power to tell stories that unite people in the dark through their shared connection and humanity. Then they go and run from a CGI snake for an hour. One sad I thought had watching Anaconda: If this is the only stuff modern Hollywood makes now, would these aspiring auteurs even want to work there anymore?

-Matt Singer, Screen Crush: 4/10

The thing about a film like the original Anaconda is that arguments about whether it was good or not are beside the point — it fell squarely into that prime Blockbuster Video era in which a film could be so inescapable that its quality for a certain generation is incidental. A sequence in which Doug, Griff, Kenny, and Claire reminisce gleefully about scenes from this bit of pop-culture ephemera they caught during college gets at this fact perfectly, that what they’re pining for is not the movie itself, but this stretch of their lives in which they had time to hang out with their friends. The rest of Anaconda, which involves a quirky Brazilian snake handler played by Selton Mello and a mysterious local with dangerous secrets played by Daniela Melchior, unfolds clumsily and, worse, too earnestly, as though the point all along were to rediscover the magic of filmmaking. Son of Rambow this isn’t. Anaconda may have always been asking too much of its source material, but this reboot has been fatally defanged.

-Alison Willmore, Vulture

PLOT

Four childhood friends: Doug, Griff, Kenny, and Claire, seeking to recapture their youth, travel to the Amazon to film an amateur remake of the 1997 film Anaconda. Their project unravels when a real giant anaconda emerges, turning the light-hearted shoot into a perilous fight to stay alive. The movie that they're dying to remake? It might just kill them, literally.

DIRECTOR

Tom Gormican

WRITERS

Tom Gormican & Kevin Etten

MUSIC

David Fleming

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Nigel Bluck

EDITORS

Craig Alpert & Gregory Plotkin

RELEASE DATE

December 25, 2025

RUNTIME

99 minutes

BUDGET

$45 million

STARRING

• Paul Rudd as Ronald "Griff" Griffen Jr.

• Jack Black as Doug McCallister

• Steve Zahn as Kenny Trent

• Thandiwe Newton as Claire Simons

• Daniela Melchior as Ana Almeida

• Selton Mello as Santiago Braga

• Ione Skye as Malie McCallister

Some movies don’t stop to explain themselves. They move forward and assume you’re watching closely. Characters don’t always say what they feel.

Scenes don’t always resolve in neat ways. You’re expected to read between the lines.

No Country for Old Men does this in a very deliberate way. Important events happen without buildup or explanation. Violence arrives suddenly and leaves just as fast. The film never tells you what it all means. It just places you in that world and lets you sit with the consequences.

Then there’s Lost in Translation. Almost nothing in it is spelled out. The connection between the characters' lives in small gestures, half conversations and shared silence. You understand what’s going on because you’ve probably felt it yourself at some point.

What I like about movies like these is how they stay with you. You think about them later. You replay scenes in your head. On a second watch, things land differently because you’re bringing more of yourself into it.

I’m curious which films made you feel this way. Movies that trusted you enough to stay quiet and let you do some of the work.

It happens to all of us. A scene that’s absolutely not intended to be comical comes off as hilarious. Sometimes it’s the whole audience and sometimes it’s just you personally who finds it funny but either way the scene just doesn’t come off the way the film intended.

What are some movie scenes that you or the entire group couldn’t stop laughing at even though you knew or realized soon after that it wasn’t meant to be funny?

When I saw The Northman the scene where Olga and Amleth board a boat to leave and start a new life and she tells him she’s pregnant and he immediately jumps off the boat and starts swimming back to shore I burst out laughing and most of the audience followed my lead.

I watched it like 4 years ago, and even now, I still think about it. it terrorized me, I seriously regret ever watching it. Something about it damaged me. not much else to say, for those who watched it, you know what I'm talking about, and for those who didn't, honestly, you're better off. it's a cinematical masterpiece, but I regret ever watching it.

It was a very busy weekend at the movies. Avatar: Fire and Ash easily took #1, although it is clear that the franchise has a ceiling when it comes to opening weekends. The Housemaid also posted a solid debut, while The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants didn't quite impress. But perhaps the biggest surprise was Angel Studios' David, which posted the studio's biggest ever debut. And in more positive news, A24's Marty Supreme had an incredible start in 6 theaters before its wide release on Christmas.

The Top 10 earned a combined $173.4 million this weekend. That's up 23.9% from last year, when Sonic the Hedgehog 3 debuted at #1.

Debuting atop, 20th Century Studios' Avatar: Fire and Ash earned $89 million in 3,800 theaters. This is below The Way of Water ($134.1 million), and above the original film ($77 million). Although given inflation and its high ticket prices, Fire and Ash sold less tickets than both films. 53% of the film's gross came from 3D, and IMAX represented 15%.

This is not a bad debut, it only shows that the franchise has a ceiling when it comes to opening weekends in December. But still, how could it open $35 million below The Way of Water?

For starters, The Way of Water had a novelty factor: it was the first Avatar film in 13 years. It didn't play like a normal sequel, but as a legacy sequel. As a point of reference, Jurassic World was released 14 years after Jurassic Park III, and it played the legacy angle. So Fire and Ash lacked that nostalgia angle that made people curious over returning to Pandora.

Another thing is that the marketing didn't really offer much new. Yes, the point of the film is introducing the Ash people, but barring some slight differences, the film didn't really push the boundaries of fire in the same way Way of Water pushed water. It felt like just another Avatar film, without much else. Not a detriment; by this point, you're already in or out of the franchise as you know what you're gonna get. Although its real detriment was that it lacked the same positive response as the previous films; it's currently sitting at a middling 66% on RT, below both films and becoming Cameron's lowest rated film outside Piranha 2.

According to 20th Century Studios, 60% of the audience was male, and 60% was in the 18-34 demographic. But it seems the film reasonated more with the audience; they gave it a strong "A" on CinemaScore, exactly the same as the prior films. It should be reiterated that a film like Avatar does not need a high debut, it's all about the holiday legs. So with very weak competition through the holidays and January, this is a film that will hold well for so many weeks. Although it's clear right now that it will close below The Way of Water ($688 million).

In second place, there's this week's surprise. Angel Studios' David debuted with a pretty good $22 million in 3,118 theaters. That's the studio's best ever debut, above Sound of Freedom ($19.6 million).

While Angel Studios has had a very miss rate with its recent releases, they've been pushing David harder than any other release they had. Releasing a Biblical tale just as Christmas is about to start was a smart choice. With an "A" on CinemaScore, this should hold well for the next weeks.

In third place, Lionsgate's The Housemaid debuted with a pretty solid $19 million in 3,015 theaters. That's obviously nowhere close to what It Ends with Us ($50 million), another popular adaptation, opened with, but at least it was better than Regretting You ($13.6 million).

After some rough months with very few successes, Lionsgate did a great job in prioritizing The Housemaid and successfully translating the novel's popularity to the big screen. All the trailers did a great job in building the mystery and intrigue, pretty much keeping the same tone as the novel. Good reviews (75% on RT) also helped it.

According to Lionsgate, 70% of the audience was female, and 63% was in the 18-34 demographic. They gave it a "B+" on CinemaScore, which is fine for a film like this. Given the Christmas corridor will result in great legs, there's a good chance it will hit $100 million domestically.

In fourth place, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants debuted with $15.6 million in 3,557 theaters. This number is below the 2004 film ($32 million) and the 2015 sequel ($55.3 million), by quite a margin.

The SpongeBob brand is clearly popular, given that it has managed to stay relevant for 26 years. But perhaps the reason why Search for SquarePants opened too low is that brand is past its prime. It's definitely popular, just not as high as it was years ago. The amount of bad seasons are a huge factor, but the spin-off projects sent so streaming only helped dilute the brand a little bit. So are parents really interested in taking their kids to a SpongeBob movie in theaters when they already have a lot of content on streaming and TV? The surprising performance of David certainly didn't help.

According to Paramount, 53% of the audience was male. It's a kids movie, but its biggest demographic was 18-34, which represented 53% of its audience. Clearly, SpongeBob still attracts Gen Z. In some good news, critics liked the film (86% on RT) and audiences agreed; they gave it a pretty good "A–" on CinemaScore, the best in the franchise. Even with a low debut, it's all about the holiday legs and this should hold well, considering there won't be more animated competition till Goat in February.

After leading the box office last week, Zootopia 2 dropped to fifth place with $14.8 million. But its 43% drop is very solid, and it's also higher than Moana 2's fourth weekend. The film has made $283.1 million, and it's set to enjoy some great legs for Christmas.

With more strong competition, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 continued its collapse. This time, it dropped another 61%, earning $7.6 million this weekend. The film has earned $109.3 million domestically, and even though the holidays should help with legs, it's unlikely to make it much further than $130 million. Especially when it releases on digital tomorrow.

After its poor drops over the past weeks, Wicked: For Good had its best drop yet. It eased 43%, adding $4.8 million. The film's domestic total stands at $321 million.

In eighth place, Dhurandhar is still holding well on its third weekend. It dropped just 28%, for a $2.5 million weekend. That takes its domestic total to $12.4 million.

In ninth place, Focus Features' Hamnet eased 36%, for a $918,520 weekend. The film has amassed $8.8 million so far.

A24's Marty Supreme debuted in 6 theaters ahead of its wide release on Christmas, and it posted some incredible numbers, enough to crack the Top 10. The film debuted with $875,000 this weekend. That translates to an extraordinary $145,833 per-theater average. This is not only the best PTA of the year, but it's also the best ever in A24's history and the largest since La La Land ($176,220). Compared to every other release, it's the 15th best PTA ever.

Of course, a film playing incredibly well in limited release does not guarantee that it will perform well in wide release. The Master posted an incredible $147,262 per-theater average and it tapped out with just $16.3 million, or Steve Jobs tapping out with $17.7 million despite a strong $130,380 per-theater average. But it's still an encouraging sign, especially when it was reported that many screenings were sold out. The real test comes on Thursday, when it finally debuts in wide release. Given it's A24's most expensive film ($60-$70 million), expectations are high.

After its horrible debut last week, Ella McCay pretty much vanished from theaters. It earned just $406,206, which represents a colossal 80% second weekend drop. One of the worst ever on record, and that translates to an abysmal $162 per-theater average. Through 10 days, the film has earned an abysmal $3.5 million, and it seems like it will struggle to hit $4 million by the end of its run.

In limited release, Searchlight's Is This Thing On? debuted with $135,833 in 6 theaters. That's a $22,639 per-theater average, which is fine, but nothing out of this world. The film will continue expanding before hitting wide release in January.

OVERSEAS

As expected, Avatar: Fire and Ash killed it outside America. It opened with a huge $258.1 million overseas, for a $347.3 million worldwide debut. The film's best market was China, where it opened with $57.6 million, a pretty great result, but not breaking out like Zootopia 2 did a few weeks ago. The best debuts were China ($57.6M), France ($21.4M), Germany ($18M), South Korea ($13.6M), the UK ($11.9M), Mexico ($10M), India ($9.2M), Australia ($8.2M), Italy ($7.9M), Spain ($7.1M), Brazil ($5.9M), and Indonesia ($5.6M).

A big debut, but it's below The Way of Water ($435 million). It was down across the board in pretty much every market. Again, the holiday legs is the real deal and that's what determines how high it will go. But considering the debut, there's a strong possibility that this will be the first Avatar film to miss $2 billion worldwide.

Even with Avatar, Zootopia 2 refused to go down. It still earned a great $76.7 million overseas, taking its worldwide total to a fantastic $1.276 billion in just 4 weeks. The best markets are China ($539.1M), France ($44M), Korea ($41.3M), Japan ($39.3M) and Mexico ($28.9M). In China, the film still posted a great hold, and it's about to break more stats; it'll try to reach $600 million on the market and also sell 100 million tickets in the country. No Hollywood title has reached 100 million tickets in a single country since Titanic. Given its strong hold and the holiday corridor, this will easily go above $1.5 billion worldwide.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 added $8 million overseas, taking its worldwide total to $202.7 million. The best markets are Mexico ($14M), the UK ($8.2M), Brazil ($6.3M), Australia ($5.4M) and Spain ($5.2M). In mid January, it reaches its final market, Japan.

FILMS THAT ENDED THEIR RUN THIS WEEK

• Sony/Crunchyroll's Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc has closed with a pretty great $43 million domestically and $174.7 million worldwide. No Demon Slayer numbers, but it wasn't expected to hit that. It's another sign of how big anime has gotten over the past years.

• Paramount's Regretting You has closed with a solid $90.4 million worldwide. It's nowhere close to what It Ends with Us made, but the novel simply lacked that popularity to get that high. It's a solid enough result, showing that Colleen Hoover's books are here to stay at the movies. For better or worse.

• Focus Features' Bugonia has closed with $38 million worldwide. Even though it was Yorgos Lanthimos' most expensive film at $55 million, it's barely his third highest grossing film. Not a great result, but if it gets some Oscar love, perhaps it can be all worth it.

• That's like slipping, man. Edgar Wright's The Running Man has closed with a poor $68.6 million worldwide, failing to recoup its $110 million budget and ranking as one of the year's biggest flops. Despite a hit novel, a charming lead and a director with his own fanbase, The Running Man was less than the sum of its parts and failed to attract casuals. To make matters worse; it made less money domestically than the 1987 film unadjusted. Ouch.

THIS WEEK

It's Christmas time, and there's three wide releases.

As mentioned, A24's Marty Supreme will expand into a wide release. We'll see if it can post some great numbers, it could go well with the fantastic reviews.

Sony is launching Anaconda, starring Jack Black and Paul Rudd. A meta-reboot of the franchise, it sees Black and Rudd playing two big fans of the 1997 film and trying to remake it, only to be chased by an anaconda. That's certainly... a choice to resurrect this franchise. Will this surprise?

Focus Features is also releasing the biopic Song Sung Blue, starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as Mike and Claire Sardina, who performed as the Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning & Thunder. The film has attained a pretty good critical response so far (74% on RT), and Diamond's music remains highly popular, so maybe there could be some interest in this.

And on limited release, Searchlight is releasing The Testament of Ann Lee, starring Amanda Seyfried as Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shakers religious sect in the 18th century. But on top of that... this is a musical. The film has earned critical acclaim from its festival runs, currently sitting at a great 90% on RT. But it will need some Oscar buzz to hang in there.

ANNOUNCEMENT

As next week will be the holidays, Actuals will be delayed, so I'll just post the weekend estimates on Monday. As such, the post will be up much earlier.

If you're interested in following the box office, come join us in r/BoxOffice.

With Avatar Fire and Ash coming out, it got me thinking that this concept is strangely rare. At least in mainstream movies.

Aside from Avatar and Starship Troopers (kind of), are there any decent movies that reverse the Alien invasion trope and it's humans who without provocation violently invade a planet that has intelligent life?

To be fair, The Shining didn't get a positive reception when it came out. It took years for the movie to be reevaluated as a Horror classic.

I got to see the remastered version in theaters a few weeks ago and besides Jack Nicholson's tour de force as Jack Torrance (everybody was good including the kid actor), I must say I got to enjoy Shelley Duvall a whole lot more. Her performance is much more subtle than Nicholson's because her character, Wendy, internalizes everything. She's trying to make the household as tension-free as possible because she's scared of her husband so she comes up with these cookie cutter comments but everything she does or say irritates her husband.

One scene in particular which had me near tears was when Wendy sees Danny from afar while Jack is breaking down. In her mind, she's trying to keep Danny away so as to not irritate Jack more but as she comes closer to Danny and sees the bruises in his neck, she explodes. She lets Jack have it after weeks of trying to keep the peace. All the fear and tension was gone because now all she could see was her kid is hurt and visibly traumatized and she wanted to rail against the man she assumes hurt him.