ANACONDA (2025)

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film opens in the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil. A young woman named Ana Almeida (Daniela Melchior) and her partner are making plans to hop on a boat. Ana leaves her partner and rides away on a motorcycle. A group of men led by Joao (Rui Ricardo Diaz) pursue Ana on their own boat, until an Anaconda pops out of the water and pulls one of Joao’s men underneath.

In Buffalo, Doug McCallister (Jack Black) works for a wedding video company and wants to make them more cinematic than necessary, but the customers want something simple and basic. Meanwhile, Doug’s best friend Ronald “Griff” Griffin (Paul Rudd) is a struggling actor. He gets a small role on a doctor show but gets fired for trying to do more than his simple line reading.

Doug goes home with his wife Malie (Ione Skye) and son Charlie (Sebastian Sero) to a surprise birthday party, attended by Griff and other childhood friends, Kenny Trent (Steve Zahn) and Claire Simons (Thandiwe Newton). Griff surprises everyone by pulling out a copy of a film the four made as kids, “The Quatch”, which is a cheesy homemade monster movie that everyone ends up enjoying.

The next morning, the four friends go out for breakfast and discuss their love of films, including the 1997 film “Anaconda”, one that Doug and Griff have always dreamed of remaking. Griff tells the group that he got the rights to the “Anaconda” franchise and wants to make the film that they always talked about. Kenny and Claire are onboard because they are unhappy with their lives, especially Kenny who has a substance abuse problem and was fired by Doug from the company for his problems. However, Doug thinks the project is too much of a gamble and not worth taking a risk on.

Doug tells Malie about the idea, which she supports him going after, but he is firm that it would be a bad idea. He then watches the video he had to make for his customers and realizes he does not want to be stuck doing this for the rest of his life. Doug goes to Griff’s house and agrees to go through with the remake. They gather Kenny and Claire to work out the budget, secure a loan, and Doug gets to work on the script.

The four go to Brazil and rent a boat with their snake handler, Santiago Braga (Selton Mello), who comes with his snake Heitor for the titular Anaconda. They are found by Ana, who tries to commandeer the boat for herself as Joao and his guys get closer to her, but she has no choice but to join the group on their trip.

The group shoots the film on a low budget with Kenny filming, and Griff and Claire starring as the two leads, while slowly rekindling their former romance. Things take a gruesome turn when Griff, who is terrified of being so close to Heitor, accidentally throws the snake into the water, causing it to get shredded by the boat’s turbine. Santiago is devastated, but Griff tries to make it up to him by going out to find a replacement snake. Griff and Santiago go out into the water at night, where Santiago is pulled away by the Anaconda, and Griff runs away.

Griff gets the rest of the group to leave the boat and help him go looking for Santiago. They walk into the jungle and find an old camper after Joao tries to get them, but Ana knocks him out with a rifle. She tells the group that he is part of a team of dangerous gold miners in the area. They get inside and are startled to find Santiago’s partially digested corpse fall on the windshield. The group comes face-to-face with the Anaconda, but it does not attack them. The camper won’t start, so Doug has to go outside and fix the engine. He just barely avoids getting eaten as the group speeds away, pursued by Joao.

The group tries to continue filming their project without getting eaten, and Doug starts to make Ana the focus of the film since she proved herself to be badass and capable in combat. This causes friction with Griff, who thinks Doug is doing too much of what he wants. Things take another turn when a few boats from a movie crew shooting an ACTUAL reboot of “Anaconda” from Sony passes by. This forces Griff to reveal that he never actually had the rights to “Anaconda” and just wanted an excuse to do better in his career. Doug and Griff fight, and Griff takes off on a small boat to catch up to the film crew to get himself home.

When Griff catches up to the crew boats, he finds that they are destroyed, and not a single crew member in sight. One of the PAs that they spoke to emerges, but she quickly becomes Anaconda food. Griff rides the boat back toward his friends after finding a rifle among the crew’s belongings.

Ana reveals herself to be the real dangerous gold miner, and Joao is a cop trying to bring her in. She forces Doug, Kenny, and Claire to gather gold for her onto the boat, but Joao tries to arrest her…until Griff interferes and shoots Joao in the leg. Ana kills Joao and aims her rifle at Claire, who tries to fake a sob story until she wrestles the gun out of Ana’s hands. The Anaconda emerges and drags Ana under the water to her death, while the rest of the friends flee.

The four have to walk through the jungle to find their way home. Doug gets bitten in the leg by a spider, and Kenny has to pee on his leg to stop the toxin from spreading. When Doug tries to reconcile with Griff, he gets eaten by the Anaconda. Griff blames himself for what happened, but they soon find Doug puked up and use him, plus a seemingly dead boar, as bait for the Anaconda. Doug turns out to be alive (as is the boar) and he runs like hell to get out of there (but the boar gets eaten again) and rejoin his friends.

Seeing no other way out, the friends decide they need to kill the Anaconda. They come upon the wreckage of the reboot film set and find a walkie-talkie. They call for help, and someone starts shooting the Anaconda with flares. That someone turns out to be none other than…ICE CUBE! He was going to star in the reboot as his character from the original, until the Anaconda attacked. He tells the group that there are pyrotechnics all across the set, and they need to set them off to kill the snake. Doug and Griff lure the Anaconda into the path of the pyros, which Kenny helps set off. This fails to kill the snake, and it has the four cornered in a dead end. It slithers toward propane tanks, and Griff grabs a flare gun and shoots the tanks, blowing up the Anaconda’s body. The head remains alive, so Doug delivers the killing blow with a trophy that Charlie gave him. The friends walk away victorious.

Sometime later, the friends premiere their finished version of their unauthorized remake “The Anaconda”, to a positive crowd. The ending text states that the group could not secure theatrical distribution since Sony sent them a cease-and-desist. Griff and Claire got married, and Doug made their wedding video the way he wanted to. Kenny gets over his issues and finds success in other areas. In the end, Doug is visited by Jennifer Lopez (another star of the original), who loved the remake and wants to get Doug onboard to direct an actual reboot. Doug simply faints.

A group of childhood friends - Doug McCallister, Ronald "Griff" Griffin, Kenny Trent, and Claire Simons - who are unsatisfied with the way their lives have gone gather to remake one of their favorite films, "Anaconda." After securing a loan, they travel to the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil to make a low-budget indie version of the film. Griff accidentally kills the snake they meant to use, so he and snake handler Santiago go into the jungle to find a replacement. Santiago is eaten by a real Anaconda that terrorizes the jungle.

The four friends are joined by Ana, a woman who claims to be going after dangerous gold miners. Doug starts to shift the focus of the film to her, which causes friction with Doug. Making things worse is Doug finding out that Griff lied about securing the rights to the "Anaconda" franchise when an actual crew remaking the film passes by. Griff leaves to join them but finds them all eaten.

Ana reveals herself to be a villain and tries to get the crew to gather her gold for her, but the Anaconda kills her by dragging her underwater. The friends try to make their way home, but Doug gets eaten and nearly dies. They come upon the wrecked film set and are joined by Ice Cube (star of the original film), who helps them set off pyrotechnics to blow the snake up. This doesn't work, so Griff shoots propane tanks with a flare to blow up the Anaconda's body, and Doug delivers the final blow to the head.

The group ends up making the finished film, but it cannot secure theatrical distribution since Sony sends them a cease-and-desist. Griff and Claire get married, while Kenny gets over his issues to find success. Doug is visited by Jennifer Lopez, who liked the film and wants him to direct an actual reboot of the film.