Before helping to revive the Anaconda franchise, Steve Zahn enjoyed a unique history in the horror-thriller genre going all the way back to Joy Ride, and the Emmy nominee is ready to see the franchise make a return. Hailing from future sci-fi vet J.J. Abrams, Silicon Valley‘s Clay Tarver and Rounders director John Dahl, the 2001 thriller revolved around estranged brothers making a cross-country trip with one of their friends/crushes who become terrorized by a violent truck driver after pulling a prank on him.
Also led by Paul Walker, Leelee Sobieski and Ted Levine as the voice of the driver, Rusty Nail, heard over the brothers’ CB radio throughout the film, Joy Ride was a modest success on release, grossing nearly $37 million against its $23 million production budget and scoring solid reviews from critics. With the film becoming a cult classic through home video and TV syndication, it went on to spawn two direct-to-video sequels, which garnered poor reviews.
Now, in an interview with ScreenRant‘s Ash Crossan to discuss Anaconda, Zahn shared his hopes for the Joy Ride franchise to return. Having been asked about his most-desired follow-up to any of his works in the way of the new Sony horror comedy, the Emmy nominee initially began by saying one that “I don’t know if I’d want to see” remade or redone is Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do!, comparing it to the cast of a stage play seeing new versions of the material:
It’s like when you’re the original cast of a play, and then you go see the play with a different cast. It’s just strange. It’s just different. I don’t know if I have many movies that fall into that category.
Despite his doubts about having any titles worthy of a sequel, Zahn then pointed to Joy Ride as being one worthy of a proper sequel or reboot. The one thing that the star felt could make a new version of the cult classic horror-thriller interesting is to “modernize” its concept for audiences.
Zahn’s question of how best to modernize the original Joy Ride formula is certainly one of the biggest challenges to face any filmmaker who wants to reboot the franchise. In the two decades since the cult classic came out, technology has changed in a number of ways, particularly CB radios becoming less prominent, while people have also become less interested in talking with people anywhere other than a screen.
While there’s not really any direct smartphone or app equivalent that would neatly fit into that place, there are still other ways for a Joy Ride reboot or legacy sequel to get around this. The Scream franchise has notably overcome much of its ’90s-based narrative conveniences with its last two installments and still proved successful, while the likes of Drop have shown that taut Hitchcockian stories can also still be just as gripping.
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The other big hurdle that a new Joy Ride movie would likely face is where the rights of the franchise currently lie. Though originally distributed by 20th Century Fox, production company Regency Enterprises is said to hold the majority of said rights. With Disney only owning 20% of the company after their acquisition of Fox, it’s unclear who they would need to sell on making a new one.
That being said, given Disney has been steadily building their horror output through both the 20th Century Studios and Searchlight banners, there’s still a chance that the right pitch could bring Joy Ride back. A legacy sequel does seem unlikely, given both Zahn’s apparent disinterest to return himself, rather than just see the franchise come back, as well as Walker’s 2013 death. Instead, a new installment would likely focus on a new cast, but could build upon the mysterious nature of Rusty Nail, or even turn him into a slasher legend that someone else adopts for their own motives.
- Release Date
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October 5, 2001
- Runtime
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92 minutes
- Director
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John Dahl
