Anaconda (1997)

Em: 00:01:15

Hi everyone, I'm Em and welcome to Verbal Diorama, Episode 302, Anaconda.

This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy movies you know and movies you don't. That strikes wraps around you, holds you tighter than your true love.

And you get the privilege of hearing your bones break before the power of embrace causes your veins to explode. But you know, listen to the podcast first and ideally, leave a five star rating and review before your veins explode. Thanks.

Welcome to Verbal Diorama. Whether you are a brand new listener to this podcast and you just really love snakes. Welcome back regular returning listeners.

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. I am so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of Anaconda.

And just a huge thanks to everyone who listens to this podcast and has continued to listen and support this podcast. This podcast has been going for over 300 episodes and six years now and I am just hugely blown away by the amazing, incredible support that I get.

It means so much to have you guys continue to be here with me, especially after my short break. It is good to be back. I've had a couple of weeks off after my mega five episode trip to Middle Earth. Holidays really taken out of you.

But seriously, that series was so much fun and different and special and as much as I loved my trip to Middle Earth, we are back to actual Earth with a bit of a bang. And with that, I must welcome you to Baby Kaijune. What even is Baby Kaijune? Well, Kaijune was a series I did a couple of years ago.

Because I love monster movies, I love creature features, anything to do with huge monsters, I am a massive fan.

Joon Ho's the host, Godzilla: 1998

I love Guillermo del Toro, as anyone who listens to this podcast regularly will know. And I especially love Pacific Rim. Why is it Baby Kaijune?

Well, I wanted to do another Kaijune, but this series is smaller than usual because I've only got two weeks in June, and these monsters are a bit smaller than the other ones that I talked about. And whilst they're smaller, they're still terrifying.

And actually, in some ways even more terrifying because these are creatures that exist in real life. And we're starting with the largest and heaviest snake species in the world, both in terms of length and weight.

The green anaconda, which is native to Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, French Guiana and Suriname.

Known for their lightning speed and ability to squeeze the life out of prey by coiling around, asphyxiating them, and swallowing them whole, which is absolutely terrifying. The largest verified green anaconda ever recorded, weighed 500 pounds, was 27.7ft long, and had a girth of 3.6ft.

n anaconda, was discovered in: 2024

And this movie is pretty famous for being the only movie starring Jennifer Lopez where JLO wasn't the biggest diva on set. Here's the trailer for Anaconda.

Em: 00:06:42

In search of the elusive Shirashama tribe, Documentary director Terri Flores, in the hopes of her big break, leads an equally ambitious team of six deep into the Brazilian rainforest, including an anthropologist, cameraman, documentary host, production manager and sound engineer.

Before long, while sailing the meandering Amazon river, they encounter stranded Paraguayan adventurer Paul Serone, who claims he has evidence of the mysterious indigenous tribe's existence. However, Paul seems to know more than he's letting on and starts misleading the group.

Slow and agonising deaths await the unsuspecting crew as it becomes clear that the eccentric Sarone is hunting a record breaking green anaconda and he plans to use the team as collateral damage to get his million dollar live bounty. Let's run through the cast. We have Jennifer Lopez as Terry Flores, Ice Cube as Danny Rich, Jon Voight as Paul Serone, Eric Stoltz as Dr.

Steven Cale, Jonathan Hyde as Warren Westridge, Owen Wilson as Gary Dixon, Kari Wuhrer as Denise Kohlberg, Vincent Castellados as Mateo, Danny Trejo as Poacher and Frank Welker as the voice of the Anaconda. Anaconda was written by Hans Bauer, Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. And was directed by Luis Llosa.

new, having originated in the: 1910

O' Brien in the Lost World in: 1925

It kick started the: 1950

It was in the: 1950

neered the genre with Jaws in: 1975

ike Orca, the killer whale in: 1977

further with Jurassic Park in: 1993

They had big enough budgets for big names and big enough budgets for big effects. Unlike the often mindless beasts of earlier B movies, Jurassic Park's dinosaurs displayed cunning intelligence, particularly the velociraptors.

This shift towards smart, strategic predators became a hallmark of 90s creature features, which made the very real creatures of the likes of Anaconda, Lake, Placid and Deep Blue Sea somewhat more terrifying when you realize that they could kill you and they were more intelligent than you. The 90s was a rich vista of creature features and disaster movies.

And I do want to do some disaster movies real soon on the podcast, because there are a couple I really love. But Even in the 90s, the creature feature landscape was continually evolving, as was the original script for Anaconda.

While we don't have that script, we do have this quote. It has been said that among the continents, South America will teach it to you. God and the devil are the same.

This last great reservoir of primordial wilderness is at once both Garden of Eden and green sweltering hell.

In the dead of a Chicago Winter, a 20something middle school biology teacher, Andy Easter and six young colleagues Hatch a plan to spend their summer in Brazil, hoping to reverse their meager fortunes by joining a modern day gold rush on a tributary of the mighty Amazon. Disorientated and increasingly isolated, the treasure hunters stray into the remote domain of three colossal Daughter, mother, grandmother.

One by one, under terrifying circumstances, the teachers fall victim to the devastating effects of gold fever and the relentless brutality of the primeval South American jungle. Andy Easter must discover her inner Amazon to avoid becoming prey for the mother of all snakes.

And if you think that sounds a little bit like the plot of Anaconda, you'd be kind of Right. Because this is the synopsis of Anaconda, the Writer's Cut, Hans Bauer's original vision for his Anaconda script.

It is a little bit different, but also kind of the same.

Anaconda was the first project CL Cinema Line Films Corporation brought to the big screen via the company's three year first look deal with Columbia Pictures. It was also the only film made in this deal.

They acquired Bauer's script and immediately set about rewriting it and drafting in the writing team of Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. Known for their work on Top Gun. To change the core cast from teachers to documentary filmmakers.

he Writer's Cut as a novel in: 2014

Part of the script's appeal to the filmmakers was that the giant anaconda that becomes the main instrument of terror is not entirely a creature of fantasy. Anaconda had the potential to scare people and be an exciting action adventure movie at the same time.

Snakes had never really been part of those creature feature monsters, despite so many people being genuinely afraid of snakes. The only other notable snake movie is the horror comedy Snakes on a Plane. And even then it's not one or two snakes, but thousands of snakes.

But they're tiny snakes, so they're not really that scary in the grand scheme of things. As this movie was set in the Amazon, they wanted a South American director.

And one of the first directors CL Cinema Line's president of production and Anaconda executive producer Susan Ruskin approached was Luis Llosa.

Llosa's involvement with Anaconda came as the natural progression of an interesting career trajectory that seemingly positioned him perfectly for the project.

e country making films in the: 1980

uding Hour of The Assassin in: 1987

Jose produced and directed in: 1989

he directed the Specialist in: 1994

He had familiarity with South America, specifically jungle locations, production logistics, and a track record of commercially successful genre films. So he was a prime candidate for directing Anaconda.

It was Llosa who had the idea of starting the film out with large, expansive settings, vistas and visions, the expanse of the forest, the jungle and sky.

And as the journey goes on, you're getting into narrower and narrower tributaries, so the feeling of the film starts to close in on you as well as the snake closing in on you. Josas hiring for Anaconda wasn't accidental. And as I'm coming to, nor was anything else in this movie.

There was a remarkable amount of effort behind the scenes to make something really extraordinary. The next challenge was the cast.

They wanted to find an interesting group of actors that the audience would immediately care about and would want to see on this kind of journey, as well as characters.

You wouldn't be able to tell right off the bat who was going to be the hero, who was going to live, who was going to die, and what order were they gonna die in.

ction thriller money train in: 1995

Selena was released in March: 1997

It was itself released just two years after Selena Quintanilla was murdered by the president of her fan club. Whether Anaconda was riding on the success of Selena is debatable.

But in: 2021

ch and admitted on Twitter in: 2022

Eric Stoltz, who joined the movie as anthropologist Stephen Cale, thought he harbored no fear of snakes until he met a real anaconda. While shooting in Brazil, a live 15 foot anaconda was captured off the deck of their hotel. It took four people to hold the snake down.

He then acquired a small fear of snakes.

And of course, shooting on location in Brazil allowed the cast and crew the opportunity and privilege to observe real anacondas on a regular basis over the five week shoot. And of course we have to talk about Jon Voight and that accent and whatever it is that he's doing.

Look, he's channeling Tommy Wiseau before the room somehow. Nowadays, Voight is more well known for being an outspoken supporter of the Orange Wotsit In Chief.

But back in: 1997

time nominee for his role in: 2001

Voight just snuck it into filming after having a conversation with his makeup artist and he was surprised it made it into the final cut. And of course, this was a wink after he was regurgitated by a huge anaconda.

So let's talk about the star of this show and the incredible animatronics by Walt Conti and his team at Edge Innovations. Conti would of course go on to make the animatronic sharks for Deep Blue Sea.

He also devised the dolphins in Flipper and the whales in Free Willy and Free Willy 2. And this snake would be a similar technical marvel or snakes, I should say, because there were two.

ft and weighed: 1500

Now, clearly using real snakes for these characters was out of the question. Firstly, snakes of this size don't exist. And second, have you ever tried to direct a snake? They don't really respond to human commands.

To design the animatronic anacondas, Conti studied the movements and expressions of real snakes and recreated them via hydraulics, electronics and computers. To replicate a real snake in the head, they mimic the motion of the eyes, the way the mouth opens, how the tongue works.

They tried to give it as many joints as a real snake, at least 100 individual joints to give it enough degrees of movement to emulate the smooth undulating motion of a real snake. But they also had to be able to do some movements extremely fast.

The final configuration included 60 dual axis hydraulically powered joints, for a total of 120 degrees of freedom.

Fitting so many joints inside such a slender form factor meant using commercially available actuators and servo valves was not an option because of space constraints. Instead, the engineering team had to develop a highly integrated and custom design that combined structural and hydraulic functions.

Each link served as a structural member as well as the body of two high performing servo valves. In addition, 20 different custom designed size cylinders and dozens of styles of hydraulic fittings were used.

Each of the 60 links contained almost 200 custom mechanical parts. To coordinate the movement, they needed at least 10 puppeteers. A computer was programmed with all the intricate movements the script required.

And the computer drove the snake with the puppeteers controlling intricate movement. The system consisted of 60 digital signal processor cards and seven Pentium processors.

The DSP cards performed geometric transformations and closed the control loop for each link, while the Pentium processors coordinated the commands across all links. And all of this software was also built in house. It was proprietary.

Although anacondas have round spherical pupils in real life, the snakes in the film were given slanted pupils to make them appear more dangerous. All of the snake's features, the eyes, the moving tongue, the lips, moved independently. Every detail was at the utmost importance.

Dozens of eyeballs were painted and tested inside the snake's head. The snake itself was painted on the inside to better resemble the sheen and pattern of a live anaconda.

Conti also devoted a great deal of time to designing the interior of the anaconda's mouth. For all intents and purposes, this was a real snake, both to Conti and his team and the cast.

The main concern with Anaconda was that the fake snake had to be able to operate underwater, as there were several scenes of the animal swimming.

This was a significant technical hurdle that required specialized waterproofing and engineering solutions, Drawing on Conti's expertise from his marine animal work. But as we all know, especially from Jaws, water and electronics don't often mix.

And one day while filming, the snake malfunctioned and the puppeteers lost control, with the snake violently thrashing in the water with essentially 10 tons of torque convulsing all over the place. Some of the footage of this snake going haywire did actually end up in the movie but it was incredibly dangerous for both the actors and the crew to.

But with it being incredibly dangerous, I guess it was just being a genuine anaconda, even though anaconda don't tend to eat humans. But I mentioned a bigger diva than JLo. The snake was the star of the show and God damn it, she would get her way. Damn catering.

In this movie, there's hardly nothing to regurgitate. I'm not happy I'm going to have a full on diva meltdown in the water is probably what the snake was thinking.

Now, obviously with a creation like the anacondas that were made for this movie, I always like to wonder, well, where are they now?

And the 40 foot animatronic model for the queen anaconda seen in the movie would actually spend much of its life in San Francisco at the California Academy of Sciences inside the Amazon Rainforest Aquarium and snake Pit attraction. The model had the skin and tail removed, displaying the snake's endoskeleton and complex circuitry of the animatronic wiring.

It was indeed the real snake used in the movie and not a replica. Now I can't seem to find if it's still on display at the California Academy of Sciences, so maybe anyone who's been recently can let me know.

It was definitely there in: 2011

But again, where is this snake now? Where is the warrior snake? I have no idea. We need to know where these incredible snakes live.

Conti's animatronic snake was composited with computer graphic imaging from Sony Pictures Image work for effects and motion that could not be achieved practically on set.

And this hybrid approach allowed the filmmakers to use practical effects for close up and detail shots while relying on CG for wide shots and more dynamic movements. But this was CG in its infancy and it was expensive. Reportedly, 1/2 of CG snake footage cost this movie $100,000. So it was used sparingly.

And the animatronic was always favored if possible. And this is why this movie still looks so good today. The giant CG snake would become Sony Pictures Image Works. First fully CG animated character.

And it was fully articulated, meaning it required complex rigging systems to control the serpentine movement realistically.

The digital snake was primarily used for wide shots, complex swimming sequences underwater such as the Owen Wilson and the Tommy scene, fast moving attack sequences and scenes requiring the snake to perform physically impossible movements. For the animatronic.

Otherwise, the reason this movie looks as good as it does is because the vast majority of the time, the snakes are real animatronics.

The ugly truth is that: 1997

And this explains why the CG snake just stands out when it's used, and why the film relied heavily on animatronics and used the CG primarily for full body movements and action sequences.

And honestly, this movie is all the better for using this CG snake sparingly, because I watched this movie on Amazon prime in HD and the animatronic snake still looks incredible. The CG snake not so much. As much as I love this movie, and I really do, the CG snake just does not look as good as the animatronic.

And if you're not impressed by this movie enough yet. 200 crew members moved into the Amazon to film on location. Half of these crew members were American, the other half were Brazilian.

And at the time, it was the largest group of American filmmakers to ever shoot in Brazil.

Brazilian production manager Keiki Fiera and his American counterpart Jim Dyer organized their respective crews who worked side by side to accommodate the production. Much of the film was shot off the river city of Manaus.

than it did in the autumn of: 1995

But that year the Amazon experienced a severe drought with water levels dropping at a depth of a three story building ships were grounded. Coincidentally, the same year, deforestation peaked in the region. I'm sure the two aren't linked.

n location filming till April: 1996

Luckily, the majority of filming was on a barge, and this production relied heavily on ships and barges. Props would shuttle round on barges. The crew went to work every day on skiffs, traveled to lunch and back to the hotel at sunset via boat.

At night, big buoys, Americans pronounced them boo-ees, but they're buoys were lit and placed along the river, illuminating the way cast, crew and equipment were boated back and forth. A yacht with a number of suites housed eight actors and director during the day in between scenes and also held the hair and makeup departments.

An ex tourist sightseeing boat called Jumbo was refurbished and made as a warehouse for props, set dressing, camera, grip and electrical equipment. They also built a two man skiff, dubbing it the Panaconda to film shots from the snake's point of view.

Filming in the spring, literally on the equator, meant that not only did they have to deal with rain in the unsurprisingly named rainforest, but also incredible heat, humidity and high sun. Even with the jungle canopy, the sun and heat was often excruciating with silk canopies being used for shade.

After shooting in the Amazon, the crew moved back to the US to film at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, transforming it into a tropical rainforest that included a cascading waterfall.

This was down to production designer Kurt Petrichelli and his team who built everything from the ground up, taking three and a half months to build the waterfall which was 45ft tall and had to be able to support the animatronic snake. They also had to replicate the floating trees of the Amazon, which ended up being trees mounted on platforms under the lake.

Not long after production wrapped, the producers, Carol Little of the LA based fashion empire, her estranged husband Leonard Rabinowitz and his former girlfriend Verna Harrah split up. And by that I mean the production team split up, not romantically split up.

This was very much a production born of love for the movies, but not for producers in the business. The production company, CL Cinema Line Films Corporation was set up with connections, independent cash and a love of alien and science fiction.

Harrah bought out Little and Rabinowitz's stakes in CL Cinema Line Film Corporation after they favoured independent productions with maximum control and Hauer preferred studio deals. It was very much an art versus crowd pleasers, the very definition of irreconcilable differences in a production company.

And that's basically why CL Cinema Line Films Corporation never made anything else. It certainly wasn't from the release and reaction to Anaconda.

And this is the thing and the reason I love doing this podcast to most this is just a dumb snake movie. And yeah, I guess it is in many ways, but there is so much love and attention in this dumb snake movie.

It may not have the greatest characters or script in the world, but it has Jon Voight doing whatever Jon Voight's doing and it has some incredible practical animatronics and beautiful sets.

There is no easy way to segue into this, but it is time for the obligatory Keanu reference of this episode and if you don't know what that is, it's where I Troy in the movie that I'm featuring with Keanu Reeves for no reason other than he is the best of men. And let's be honest, if the team found Keanu Reeves in the Amazon instead of Paul Cerrone, the situation would have ended up a lot differently.

I can guarantee that there would be no dead bodies in the Amazon.

film at the Sutton Awards in: 1998

It is one of those that I would love to do on this podcast and I've actually been thinking of doing it for a long time.

th April: 1997

On its $45 million budget, Anaconda grossed $65.9 million domestically and $70.9 million internationally, for a total worldwide gross of $136.8 million. Not bad for a cheesy little bee movie. Creature Feature this Anaconda had bite.

Not so much with the critics though, because on Rotten Tomatoes it has a rating of 41%.

With the consensus reading, Anaconda's pulpy pleasures are constricted by its own absurdity, but Creature Feature fans may enjoy its brazen silliness.

Some critics did praise the film's effects, scenery and tongue in cheek humor, but many criticized the acting forgettable or cardboard characters, inaccuracies and boring start. Roger Ebert loved the movie though, and he gave it three and a half out of four stars.

Anaconda was nominated for two Saturn Awards, including Best Actress for Jennifer Lopez. She lost to Jodie Foster for Contact and as I mentioned, Best Horror Film, which went to the Devil's Advocate.

ated for six Razzie Awards in: 1998

It was Also nominated for Worst New Star for the animatronic Anaconda, which is a travesty and is really harsh because the animatronic Anaconda is the highlight of this movie.

id was released in cinemas in: 2004

Anaconda, Three Offspring in: 2008

The other movie I'm going to come to shortly, the original Anaconda has a large cult following and though it was critically reviled on its initial release, has become a cult classic and enough of a cult classic to talk about a remake.

And in January: 2020

he success of The Shallows in: 2016

nnounced as a director and in: 2024

roduced remake of anaconda in: 2024

The thing is, Anaconda is widely considered a so bad it's good movie, with many citing Jon Voight as delivering an iconic so bad it's good performance.

It's received almost legendary status as a B movie that fully embraces its creature feature roots as well as delivering on the thrills and kills you'd expect that and Voight accent, permanent facial sneer. He's definitely memorable. And if you want a cult classic you need a memorable villain. It's not a bad movie, it's not a good movie.

It's not a great movie, and I absolutely love it. And you know why? Because I just love a huge snake. And I love the practical snakes in this movie. They're genuinely the best part.

The movie wouldn't work without them. They bring the real genuine fear of having a physical foe under the water. And I just think they're so brilliantly designed and executed.

Now, of course, the documentary team should have probably scarpered as soon as snakes rained down on them from above, but nevertheless, some of them survived and presumably told the world. And then no one ventured into the realms of the anacondas ever again.

Except in: 2004

As much as I love snakes having a voice by Frank Welker, I am not a huge fan of snakes that can scream. The idea there are two snakes at all feels anticlimactic, despite the queen snake being awesome.

And then at the end, you find out that Paul Sarone was right and this is where the tribe was. Don't make that guy right. Jesus. And just FYI, the Shirashama tribe that they're searching for doesn't exist in real life.

But there's also so much right with this movie. And while the CG has aged poorly, it's used sparingly enough for you to appreciate the animatronics so much more.

The cast here is great, many of whom would go on to have big careers. And Ice Cube, listening to his own music will never not tickle me. Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez have good chemistry together.

And if any of you have listened to my episode on Hustlers, you'll know how much affection I have for JLo. The woman is a queen. It's a shame the script is so formulaic and weak, but we do get a little character development.

And we also get an obligatory mummy reference in there. With the legendary Jonathan Hyde, Anaconda featured a diverse cast at a time when such representation was less common in major studio releases.

Also, one thing I really love about this movie, I love a mouth view. You know, where you see the perspective of the creature from its side. Its mouth. They do it in JAWS 3D, they do it in the MEG2.

It is one of my favorites. In: 1975

In: 1997

Except not many of us will holiday in the Amazon rainforest, but the technology to deliver a creature in the water has come on leaps and bounds in the 20 years between these two movies, and Anaconda still pays homage and respect to the mother of all creature features.

Even the digital snake represented an important milestone in CGI development, contributing to Sony Image Works evolution into a major effects house, which of course then led to Spider Man a few years later.

But surely the people in these movies know by now you don't go off for some fruity, sexy time in the jungle, no matter how horny the jungle makes you. Because let's be honest, anacondas are a real libido killer as well as, you know, just a general other stuff killer too. Thank you for listening.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on Anaconda, and thank you for your continued support of this podcast.

If you want to get involved and help this podcast grow and reach more people, you could leave a rating or review wherever you found this podcast you could find and follow me on social media. I'm @VerbalDiorama. You can find posts like posts, share posts, comment on posts. It all helps with visibility.

Or you could simply tell your friends and family about this podcast or about this episode or how they can access this podcast and this episode.

And if you like this episode on Anaconda, you might also like some previous creature feature movies that I have done episodes on episode 41, Tremors, which I remember watching vividly when I was a child, and it absolutely petrified me to the point where it gave me nightmares. But now as an adult, I absolutely love Tremors. I think it's a great movie, but yeah, not really suitable for kids.

Episode 106 the OG Jaws it's one of those movies on this podcast that I worry that not a lot of people know that I've done an episode on Jaws because Obviously it's episode 106. It was a while ago, but it is one of my favorite episodes that I've done on this podcast.

I've also done an episode on Deep Blue Sea, which is episode 146. It was a little bit different because I was kind of grieving at the time. I'd just lost my cat, Jess.

I did the episode in honor of her and it was a very emotional episode. So it's not really the typical deep Blue sea episode that you might expect because there's a little bit of emotion in there as well.

And episode 224, which was a triple episode on Jaws 2, Jaws 3D, and Jaws the Revenge. Each of those movies incredibly special and brilliant in their own right, and each of those movies has an incredible story behind them as well.

As always, give me feedback. Let me know what you think of my recommendations. Now. I said I'd come back to one of the sequels of anaconda.

In: 2015

Lake Placid is also about a real life monster under the water that has huge teeth.

So I guess there's a theme to this month's Kaijun entries, but rather than walk a blindfolded cow to the water, let's instead do an episode on the history and legacy of Lake Placid. So please join me next episode for the final episode of Baby Kaiju, where we're going from a giant snake to a giant saltwater crocodile.

Please join me next week for Lake Placid.

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