Sony had a stampede of movie date announcements last night, but one that particularly caught my eye was a Jumanji reboot slated for December 25, 2016.
News of a Jumanji remake date all the way back to 2012, when Sony announced plans to update the board game fantasy film that starred the late Robin Williams. Back then, Columbia Pictures (a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment) president Doug Belgrad said the studio was looking to "reimagine Jumanji and update it for the present." The last time I remember a movie that tried to update the concept of a board game-to-life film is Zathura: A Space Adventure, and we all saw how that flopped.
The original Jumanji was first released in 1995 and sstarred Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt, David Alan Grier, and a young Kirsten Dunst. It'll be a hard cast to match, especially whoever fills the shoes of Williams' character Alan Parrish. That is, if the remake includes the same characters. It's entirely possible Sony could reboot this thing with a similar premise, but an entirely different feel, in which case I expect fans of the original will be angrier than a pack of monkies.
No details were released aside from the release date, but let the speculation begin.
