Is Jack Black the biggest star in the world? Ask quite literally anyone and they’d probably – and very quickly – say “no”. But the numbers don’t lie: in a year in which major A-listers have struggled to open movies, among them established reliables such as Dwayne Johnson and Julia Roberts as well as nascent stars including Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, audiences have lined up in droves to see both of Black’s 2025 star vehicles. And it’s even more impressive when both of those movies are comedies, a genre largely shunted out of cinemas, and critically reviled comedies at that.
This Christmas week, Black can be seen in a reboot of the cult 1997 monster movie Anaconda, in which Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube were terrorised by a giant snake. The new Anaconda is more intentionally funny than the so-bad-it’s-charming original, with Black starring as an Anaconda superfan who decides to remake the movie with his best friend, played by Paul Rudd. Venturing to the Amazonian jungle, the pair unfortunately encounter an actual, real-life 25 ft snake.
