Can you hear that? The trial drums, the sound of jungle life…Sony Pictures and The Rock’s Seven Buck Productions are about to roll the dice on Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle, a sequel 20 years in the making.
Headed up by director Jake Kasdan, Sony’s star-studded continuation was originally slated for a release in July, before the studio decided to reshuffle its slate and push Kasdan’s family-friendly adventure all the way back to December, where it’ll seemingly fare better with its target demographic. Whether it can carve out an audience and compete with Star Wars: The Last Jedi (December 15th), though, is another question entirely.
Pitched as a sequel to the original classic, one in which Dwayne Johnson leads a crew of intrepid explorers comprised of Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), and Jack Black, Welcome To The Jungle has been relatively camera-shy up until now, but that all changes on Thursday with the launch of the film’s first trailer.
To drum up excitement – no pun intended – Sony Pictures has now unleashed an all-too-brief teaser. We’ve included it up above, along with a previously-released set video in which Dwayne Johnson recounts the perils of jungle life.
For more, you can consult the plot summary below:
In a brand new Jumanji adventure, the tables are turned as four teenagers are sucked into Jumanji’s world – pitted against rhinos, black mambas and an endless variety of jungle traps and puzzles. To survive, they’ll play as characters from the game: meek Spencer becomes a stupid and girl-crazy jock (Dwayne Johnson); football jock Fridge becomes a tiny Einstein (Kevin Hart); It-girl Bethany becomes a bookworm professor (Jack Black); and unathletic Martha becomes an amazonian warrior (Karen Gillan). To beat the game and return to the Planet Earth with their lives, they’ll have to start seeing things in an entirely different way.
It’s the magical board game with bite, and on December 22nd, Jake Kasdan’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle will hope to honor a legacy spanning all the way back to Chris Van Allsburg’s novel of 1981. The jury’s still out on whether Kasdan can overcome such a daunting proposition, but we’ll certainly be able to form a clear picture of what to expect from his Jumanji sequel once that first trailer roars online this Thursday. Keep your peepers peeled.
