Robin Williams’ memorable turn as Alan Parrish will be honored during Sony Pictures’ upcoming Jumanji reboot.
That’s according to Dwayne Johnson, who recently inked a deal to headline the studio’s modern reimagining of the beloved 1995 adventure film and posted a heartfelt message to Instagram regarding the nascent remake to allay fears that Sony’s new take would in any way tarnish the memory left by the late, great, Williams.
Beyond teasing that the film’s commemoration would be crafted in “an earnest and cool way,” little is known about Sony’s plans to integrate Alan Parrish into the story. But as Johnson’s Instagram post reveals, the project is coming together really rather quickly.
“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.”
In terms of those seemingly imminent casting announcements, it was rumored that Johnson’s Central Intelligence co-star Kevin Hart would also feature in Jumanji, though whether or not that’s the case will be told in time. However Sony’s casting process shakes out, the studio is expanding the core roster of heroes to five as opposed to the original three.
Jumanji is tentatively slated to drop on July 28, 2017. Director Jake Kasdan (Bad Teacher, Sex Tape) is steering the reboot to the big screen.
