Edgar Ramirez, who starred as Gianni Versace in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, is setting sail for Jungle Cruise.
Dwayne Johnson will star in Disney’s feature adaptation of its own theme park ride, along with a crew that is currently made up of Emily Blunt and comedian Jack Whitehall.
Jaume Collet-Serra, the filmmaker behind The Shallows and Liam Neeson films such as The Commuter and Non-Stop, will helm the project, which is set in the early 20th century and will take place in the Amazon jungle.
Johnson will play a boat captain who takes his sister (Blunt) and her brother (Whitehall) on a mission to find a tree believed to possess healing powers. Wild animals and a competing German expedition figure into the proceedings.
Ramirez will play a man with a conquistador background who is one of the story’s villains.
Beau Flynn, John Davis and John Fox are producing the pic, as are Johnson, Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia. Scott Sheldon is co-producing.
Jungle Cruise is heading toward a May start and will shoot through the summer. Michael Green, who penned Logan and the latest remake of Murder on the Orient Express, wrote the most recent draft of the script.
Ramirez previously worked with Blunt in The Girl on the Train. The actor appeared in such recent high-profile projects as Netflix’s first blockbuster Bright with Will Smith, Gold with Matthew McConaughey and the boxing drama Hands of Stone with Robert De Niro.
Ramirez is repped by CAA, Impression Entertainment and Hirsch Wallerstein.
