Four high school friends are whisked on an epic, downright hilarious adventure in the second full trailer for Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Sony Pictures and Jake Kasdan’s star-studded sequel that’s 22 years in the making.
Gunning for a new and fresh take on Chris Van Allsburg’s literary classic, Welcome to the Jungle drags the world of Jumanji into the present day, and essentially swaps out the old for the new. Gone are Alan Parrish – Robin Williams’ man-child will still be honored in Kasdan’s continuation – and the iconic board game, with Jumanji now taking the form of a dusty old video game that manages to suck our four heroes into a chaotic world of rampaging elephants and jungle traps. And that’s where our story begins.
But to keep audiences on their toes, Welcome to the Jungle takes a leaf out of Tron‘s book and places our lead characters in control of in-game avatars to hilarious effect. And so, the humble Spencer becomes a brave explorer (Dwayne Johnson), high school jock Fridge becomes a pint-sized genius (Kevin Hart), It-girl Bethany becomes a bookworm professor (Jack Black), and the unathletic Martha becomes an amazonian warrior (Karen Gillan) with tiny clothes.
To make it out of the jungle alive, they must roll the dice, and at least according to Dwayne Johnson, each character will be limited to only three lives come December. Staying true to video game logic, the actor told USA Today that all four principal characters will bite the bullet at least once:
That first meeting we had, I said, ‘We have this gift of these three lives. What are the most fun, awesome, crazy ways that we can die and audiences are going to love?’ That means all of us, you know, um, well, we’re going to go to meet our maker.
Also starring Nick Jonas, Ser’Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Alex Wolff and Morgan Turner, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle will stomp into theaters on December 20th. It’ll face a tall order if it’s to pull audiences away from Star Wars: The Last Jedi (December 15th), but never underestimate The Rock’s box office draw.
