Get Ready to Take Disney's Jungle Cruise with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen

Ask someone to name two popular actors who have entertained us in movies and on television with their unique talents and comedy appeal, and you are quite likely to come up with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.

Both of these great actors have starred together before, at least their voices have, with them playing the roles of Woody and Buzz Lightyear from the popular Disney movie series Toy Story.

Now Disney Studios are reported to have lined them up in person, to take the leading roles in a live action movie that is to be based on the popular ride The Jungle Cruise, which first opened at the original Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California in 1955.

The official synopsis for the movie is as follows: Based on a Disney theme park ride, "The Jungle Cruise" is a period action-adventure tale featuring a riverboat skipper who leads trips into the jungle where his passengers encounter wild animals and exotic natives.

Disney is reported to have signed a contract for Roger S.H. Schulman (co-writer of Shrek) to re-work an original script for the movie that was produced by Josh Norville and Josh Goldstein. David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman (The Fighter) are named as producers.

Little more information on this movie has been released so far, other than the roles that the two main characters will be playing. Tom Hanks will be playing the part of a family man, while Tim Allen will be the captain of a tour boat.

Given the characters and the nature of the Jungle Boat ride, I can visualise the plot going along the lines of Gilligan's Island, with Tim Allen playing an inexperienced captain who ends up allowing his tour boat to go aground miles from anywhere up a river in the jungle, leaving the passengers and crew at the mercy of the local wildlife.

I can imagine possible guest appearances by Tarzan and Jane, maybe even Simba and Narla from The Lion King, but I am probably about as far from the actual script as you could possibly get.

Tim Allen has of course starred in a movie that was set in the jungle before, in the 1997 production Jungle 2 Jungle, which sees him finding that he has a son who is living in a remote village in the Amazon Rainforest.

The idea of making a major motion picture that is based loosely on a theme park ride is of course ridiculous, however Disney proved the critics to be completely wrong when they released the now classic pirate movie, Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl in 2003. The fourth movie in this saga, Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is currently in post-production and set for release later in 2011.

The Haunted Mansion, a 2003 movie starring Eddie Murphy and also based on a long time Disneyland ride, did not achieve the same level of success as Pirates Of The Caribbean, but it has not deterred Disney Studios from trying the same formula again.

Plans to turn the Jungle Cruise ride into a movie have been on the drawing board for at least five years, but it could be that it just took time to find the right scriptwriters and cast.

With Tom Hanks and Tim Allen on board, this could turn out to be a rollickingly funny movie, especially if the charisma and interaction between these two characters develops as well as it did in Toy Story.

Sources:

Entertainment Weekly

Movie Insider