If you’re unaware as to the fact that there’s a Jumanji remake in the works – a property that Columbia plan to “try and reimagine and update for the present” despite the fact that it was only made in 1995 – the movie has now found its writer in Stranger Than Fiction‘s Zack Helm, who apparently knows a lot about cultural shifts between 1995 and 2012, and can help a new generation of children to understand why people are just sitting there staring at flappy paper things instead of reading stuff on tablets.
The original Jumanji, of course, was based on a best-selling children’s book from 1981, starred Robin Williams as a bearded nut, and revolved around a magical board game that brought the terrors of the jungle into the real world. It also starred a young Kirsten Dunst, who found herself stabbed in the neck by a giant mosquito whilst her brother was transformed into a monkey child.
Zack Helm has also written Ben Stiller vehicle The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and both wrote and directed Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, a film that neither children or adults would recommended to their peers. What’s important, though, is that Helm can really update this thing properly, assuring that his characters aren’t seen watching normal-sized TVs instead of much larger, flatter ones, that nobody is caught dead wearing a pair of dungarees, and that Jumanji is no longer a board game, but a neat app downloaded from the iTunes store.
Source: Screen Rant
Published: Dec 7, 2012 09:20 am