Netflix's Newest Hit Just Created the Blueprint for Movie Remakes Moving Forward

6 days ago 7

Daniela Melchior stars in the Anaconda reboot.

Published Apr 8, 2026, 1:41 PM EDT

Charlie Ridgely is a writer from Maryland, currently residing in Nashville, Tennessee. He may be new to Collider, but he's been writing, editing, conducting interviews, and podcasting around the industry for 10 years. From 2016 to the start of 2026, Charlie was a full time writer and critic at ComicBook.com. A lifelong movie fan, avid reader, and renowned (fictional) dungeon explorer/dragonslayer, Charlie is a jack-of-all-trades throughout the fandom multiverse and has covered everything under the sun.

Everybody is tired of the remake and reboot wave that has pulverized entertainment over the last couple decades, but it still feels like there's no end in sight for the era of "slap a recognizable IP on something and hope it makes money." If these reboots are going to happen though, there are ways to make them work without everything feeling like a tired retread of things we've already seen. A great example is the movie currently dominating the Netflix film charts, which brings a comedic and meta spin to the remake formula.

Director Tom Gormican recently delivered an unexpected reboot to 1997's creature feature Anaconda, with this new version centering on characters played by Jack Black and Paul Rudd. As you can expect from that leading duo, the new Anaconda leans heavily into the comedy genre, making it less of a thriller than its predecessor. It's that angle that makes the film a smart approach to reboots, and Netflix users appear to be eating it up. This fresh take on a nearly 30-year-old movie has the 2025 Anaconda on top of Netflix's movie rankings.

'Anaconda's Lesson in Remakes

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda (2025)

With the exception of Disney's live-action remakes, which are still making inexplicable amounts of money, audiences seem to have tired of reboots. Studios craving IP projects are now looking to filmmakers with unique and creative ideas for bringing dead properties back to life, hopeful that the new spin will join forces with the nostalgia to create something audiences show up for. That's what happened with Anaconda, which couldn't be more different from its predecessor.

The original Anaconda — starring Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube — is a deadly serious affair, focusing on the terrors and thrills of being hunted by a giant snake. Gormican's take on Anaconda is an outright comedy, completely changing the tone of the creature feature, and it hinges on the original movie existing as part of its plot. In this new film, Rudd and Black play a couple of longtime best friends who love the 1997 thriller, and they both have had dreams of making movies as long as they can remember. After acquiring the rights to the novel that inspired the film, they decide to head out into the jungle and shoot an indie remake of Anaconda.

These amateur filmmakers end up deep in the jungle, trying (poorly) to make a great movie, only to find themselves way in over their heads and in very real danger. As you can tell from that description alone, this meta movie-about-making-a-movie shares a lot more DNA with 2008's Tropic Thunder than it does with its 1997 namesake.

Did the 'Anaconda' Remake Work?

This is certainly a fun and different way to reboot a property, especially one that isn't exactly considered a classic (Anaconda couldn't have been on the top of anyone's wish list). The meta blueprint laid out here is something that other prospective remakes could follow in the future — but did it actually work for Anaconda?

While the concept is undeniable in theory, it appears the execution left a little to be desired, which could affect how folks view this particular formula going forward. Anaconda made decent money at the box office, earning $135 million on a reported budget of around $45 million. That's nothing to scoff at, but it's not the kind of success that has everybody champing at the bit to try and follow in your footsteps. The streaming success on Netflix also bodes well, though that could largely be attributed to the faces of Black and Rudd on the poster.

Doug smiles up at Kenny with Claire and Griff kneeling on either side of him in a rainforest.

As far as the reception is concerned, the response to Anaconda was mixed at best. The film carries a 47% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and currently sits at a middling 2.5 average with users on Letterboxd. The tepid reactions could suggest that this idea is pretty difficult to pull off, and could dissuade others from trying it out down the line.

Thanks to Netflix, Anaconda has a good chunk of momentum in the months following its theatrical release, so there's at least a lot of folks seeing that there are creative approaches to movie remakes out there. Whether the industry learns the right lessons or not is another conversation entirely.