We have been skeptical of the new Jumanji movie since it was revealed three years ago by Columbia Pictures president Doug Belgrad. According to Belgrad, the new Jumanji will reimagine the 21 year old film in modern times.
One of the reasons we were skeptical of the 'reimagined' film, was the fact that a Jumanji 'spiritual sequel' exists – no matter how hard we pretend it doesn't. It's called Zathura and it was adapted from a book by the same author that wrote Jumanji – oh, and it sucks… a lot.
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, the only confirmed actor for the film, has taken to social media to reveal that his take on Robin Williams' role as Allan Parrish in Jumanji will not only honor the character, but also Robin Williams.
In addition to that, Johnson revealed that the three characters (the boy, the girl, and Williams) have been expanded to five characters.
Here's Johnson's Instagram post in full:
And the #JUMANJI magic begins.
Excellent meeting with our director Jake Kasdan, producer Matt Tolmach, and our @SevenBucksProd team to work on our new re-imagining of this amazing story.
I felt like in order to craft something cool we should begin where it all started. Award winning writer Chris Van Allsburg's source material of JUMANJI. Chris also wrote THE POLAR EXPRESS (later adapted by Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks) and has a very special & magical way of storytelling.
I'm feelin' good and confident stepping into these shoes as a producer as well as actor to bring you something great that you and your entire fam can enjoy.
An important thing that I want to be honest and bring up is Robin Williams. The love and respect I have for this man is boundless. You have my word, we will honor his name and the character of "Alan Parrish" will stand alone and be forever immortalized in the world of JUMANJI in an earnest and cool way. I have an idea of what to do and I think his family will be proud. I also think Robin is somewhere lookin' down and laughing, remembering the first time we met backstage and I (for the first time ever) was a star struck bumbling idiot that couldn't even get my words out. Idiot. He literally calmed me down w/ that smile and laugh. But that's for another fun story down the road.
We got a great team assembled already over at our home base of SONY and now we build from here.
Here's another fun part… in the original movie there were three big roles. In our new story there's now FIVE. Been so damn cool to see all my actor buddies push their projects aside so hopefully they can come play in our world. Should have cool casting announcements this week. Will keep you posted.
Jumanji is set to release in theaters on July 28, 2017.
