‘Anaconda’ Sinks Its Teeth Into the Worst Stephen King Movie of the Decade at the Box Office

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Rahul Malhotra is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has been writing for Collider for over two years, and has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal to introduce audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Swing and a miss > measured victory. Also, #JusticeForHan. (He/Him).

In the new meta-sequel Anaconda, lifelong fans of the original 1997 film go to the Amazon to "remake" it. Shenanigans ensue. The two protagonists are played by Jack Black and Paul Rudd, and they're exactly the sort of people who'd raise their fists in the air after watching The Dark Tower adaptation that debuted a few years ago, before vowing to remake it themselves. Released in 2017, The Dark Tower disappointed both fans of Stephen King's sprawling fantasy series of novels, and audiences that were approaching it with no prior information. The property is being rebooted by filmmaker Mike Flanagan, who has adapted several of King's works in the past. The Dark Tower movie was plagued by a difficult production, and it opened to terrible reviews and a poor response at the box office. It has now been overtaken by the new Anaconda, which is set to pass the coveted $100 million mark at the global box office very soon.

Produced on a reported budget of $45 million, the movie's running domestic haul now stands at $50 million, which puts it ahead of The Dark Tower. The King adaptation was headlined by Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, but was presented from the perspective of the teenage character played by Tom Taylor. The movie was directed by the acclaimed Danish filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel, who'd previously made the Oscar-nominated drama A Royal Affair. He went on to direct another period drama, The Promised Land, which holds a near-perfect 97% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The Dark Tower, on the other hand, is sitting at a terrible 16% score on the aggregator, with a consensus that cheekily reads, "Go then, there are other Stephen King adaptations than these."

'Anaconda' Has Been Received Enthusiastically by Audiences

It's among the lowest-rated King adaptations on RT, ahead of only a handful of Children of the Corn movies, the Firestarter remake, and the little-seen film Cell. The year 2025 was massive for King's fans, with films such as The Long Walk, The Running Man, The Life of Chuck, The Monkey, and shows such as It: Welcome to Derry. This year, they can look forward to Flanagan's Carrie and The Exorcist reboots. Anaconda opened to mixed reviews. It's now sitting at a 51% score on RT, but the audience consensus is more enthusiastic: "Anaconda is a worthwhile expedition thanks to the buoyant charisma of Black, Rudd, and Zahn, who make this a meta comedy as delightfully ridiculous as it is tongue-in-snake." You can watch the film in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.