Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for 2025's Anaconda!Tom Gormican had a lot of love poured into his meta take on Anaconda, which included bringing back original star Ice Cube for a cameo. The film centers on a group of childhood friends who, yearning for something more in their lives, decide to head to the Amazon to film an amateur remake of the eponymous 1997 horror cult classic, only to find themselves being hunted by an actual anaconda and their film becoming more real than they intended.
In honor of the movie's release, ScreenRant's Ash Crossan interviewed Ice Cube and Tom Gormican to discuss the new Anaconda and the original star's cameo return. Cube began by calling it a "great" opportunity to revisit his time on the original film, expressing that it "really stood the test of time," while also praising the new installment for going in a "totally new" direction by being more comedy-driven than the prior sequels:
Ice Cube: It was cool to bring things full circle. When I understood the tone, I jumped at it. People are going to get a kick out of me popping up. A lot of little things felt real. I was playing Ice Cube — might as well ham it up!
When asked what he finds himself asked about the most regarding the original Anaconda, Cube pointed to its filming location of Brazil as being the subject people often want to talk with him about. Explaining they shot "right in the Amazon" in Manaus, he called the jungle-set production "one of the wildest experiences of my career."
For Gormican, he acknowledged that he and the movie's creative team, including his Unbreakable Weight of Massive Talent cohort Kevin Etten, are all "fans of the original movie" and that it "holds such a special place for us." As such, going into making their own version of Anaconda, they "didn't want to tread in the ground that they had already made movies about," but still wanted to find a way for "those guys to be part of it," which included talking to Cube to try and get him a cameo:
Tom Gormican: Having Ice Cube come in and actually talk to me about the making of the original film, and what they were doing. He just found the idea so fun that, for me, it added a stamp of approval that I was probably anxious to get.
One thing Gormican found himself learning about the original from Cube was that the actual animatronic anaconda — "which didn't quite look real" — was actually just a "massive hunk of robotics covered in tire rubber." But, more surprisingly, "it freaked out and attacked them," having injured an unspecified person during filming. As such, quoting Cube, "When we're acting scared of this snake, we were actually terrified that this animatronic snake was going to freak out and actually kill us."
Cube's Anaconda cameo proved to be one of the movie's big secrets right up until the film's final trailer, in which he was seen shooting a flare gun toward the titular snake and giving Paul Rudd's character a weapon, as he came with a stockpile of his own. However, in the film itself, it's explained that the new group of characters has crashed the set of an "official" Sony-produced reboot while fleeing the giant snake, and Cube promptly leaves to go check on fellow original co-stars Jennifer Lopez and Eric Stoltz.
For fans of Cube, the moment is sure to feel reminiscent of his brief return in 2017's xXx: The Return of Xander Cage, in which he arrives for the threequel's climax as his State of the Union protagonist Darius Stone. It also plays very well with the meta nature of the new film, which Gormican quickly became known for with his Nicolas Cage-loving hit Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent just before it.
Beyond the meta side of things, Cube's cameo in the new Anaconda does prove a nice ode to his early acting days. Having made his debut with the critically acclaimed Boyz n the Hood in 1991, the original film came just on the heels of him finding success behind the camera with 1995's Friday as both a writer and producer, while also being his highest-grossing movie at the time. The years that followed the original Anaconda not only saw him make his directorial debut with the fan-favorite The Player's Club, but also do everything from such critically acclaimed hits as Three Kings to blockbuster titles, including Torque.
But while it could be seen as a nice little nod to fans of the star and cult classic original, Cube's Anaconda cameo could be the start of something bigger. As seen in the movie's ending, Lopez does also return and invites the new cast of characters to make a proper Sony-produced version of the film, and should the meta reboot prove a hit, this may just come to fruition with Cube back onboard.
