Ice Dice And Director Talk about Anaconda Cameo Return 28 Years Later

Warning: SPOILERS lie forward for 2025’s Anaconda!Tom Gormican had plenty of love poured into his meta tackle Anaconda, which included bringing again unique star Ice Dice for a cameo. The movie facilities on a gaggle of childhood associates who, craving for one thing extra of their lives, resolve to move to the Amazon to movie an newbie remake of the eponymous 1997 horror cult traditional, solely to search out themselves being hunted by an precise anaconda and their movie changing into extra actual than they meant.

In honor of the film’s launch, ScreenRant‘s Ash Crossan interviewed Ice Dice and Tom Gormican to debate the brand new Anaconda and the unique star’s cameo return. Dice started by calling it a “nice” alternative to revisit his time on the unique movie, expressing that it “actually stood the take a look at of time,” whereas additionally praising the brand new installment for moving into a “completely new” route by being extra comedy-driven than the prior sequels:

Ice Dice: It was cool to convey issues full circle. After I understood the tone, I jumped at it. Individuals are going to get a kick out of me popping up. Quite a lot of little issues felt actual. I used to be enjoying Ice Dice — would possibly as properly ham it up!

When requested what he finds himself requested about essentially the most relating to the unique Anaconda, Dice pointed to its filming location of Brazil as being the topic individuals typically need to discuss with him about. Explaining they shot “proper within the Amazon” in Manaus, he referred to as the jungle-set manufacturing “one of many wildest experiences of my profession.”

For Gormican, he acknowledged that he and the film’s artistic workforce, together with his Unbreakable Weight of Huge Expertise cohort Kevin Etten, are all “followers of the unique film” and that it “holds such a particular place for us.” As such, going into making their very own model of Anaconda, they “did not need to tread within the floor that that they had already made motion pictures about,” however nonetheless needed to discover a method for “these guys to be a part of it,” which included speaking to Dice to try to get him a cameo:

Tom Gormican: Having Ice Dice are available in and truly discuss to me concerning the making of the unique movie, and what they had been doing. He simply discovered the concept so enjoyable that, for me, it added a stamp of approval that I used to be in all probability anxious to get.

One factor Gormican discovered himself studying concerning the unique from Dice was that the precise animatronic anaconda — “which did not fairly look actual” — was truly only a “large hunk of robotics coated in tire rubber.” However, extra surprisingly, “it freaked out and attacked them,” having injured an unspecified particular person throughout filming. As such, quoting Dice, “After we’re performing frightened of this snake, we had been truly terrified that this animatronic snake was going to freak out and truly kill us.”

Dice’s Anaconda cameo proved to be one of many film’s huge secrets and techniques proper up till the movie’s ultimate trailer, during which he was seen taking pictures a flare gun towards the titular snake and giving Paul Rudd’s character a weapon, as he got here with a stockpile of his personal. Nevertheless, within the movie itself, it is defined that the brand new group of characters has crashed the set of an “official” Sony-produced reboot whereas fleeing the large snake, and Dice promptly leaves to go test on fellow unique co-stars Jennifer Lopez and Eric Stoltz.

For followers of Dice, the second is certain to really feel paying homage to his temporary return in 2017’s xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, during which he arrives for the threequel’s climax as his State of the Union protagonist Darius Stone. It additionally performs very properly with the meta nature of the brand new movie, which Gormican shortly turned identified for along with his Nicolas Cage-loving hit Insufferable Weight of Huge Expertise simply earlier than it.

Past the meta aspect of issues, Dice’s cameo within the new Anaconda does show a pleasant ode to his early performing days. Having made his debut with the critically acclaimed Boyz n the Hood in 1991, the unique movie got here simply on the heels of him discovering success behind the digital camera with 1995’s Friday as each a author and producer, whereas additionally being his highest-grossing film on the time. The years that adopted the unique Anaconda not solely noticed him make his directorial debut with the fan-favorite The Participant’s Membership, but additionally do all the pieces from such critically acclaimed hits as Three Kings to blockbuster titles, together with Torque.

However whereas it could possibly be seen as a pleasant little nod to followers of the star and cult traditional unique, Dice’s Anaconda cameo could possibly be the beginning of one thing larger. As seen within the film’s ending, Lopez does additionally return and invitations the brand new forged of characters to make a correct Sony-produced model of the movie, and will the meta reboot show a success, this may increasingly simply come to fruition with Dice again onboard.