Released: December 20, 2017

Directed By: Jake Kasdan

Screenplay By:  Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner

Based on the Book: Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg (qlso wrote Polar Express)

Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Bobby Cannavale and a bunch of other NPCs.

Plot: Four teenagers are sucked into a magical video game, and the only way they can escape is to work together to finish the game.

Taglines: The game has evolved.

How did this movie do?
Budget: $150 Million
Box Office: $995 Million

• Tom Holland was originally cast as Seaplane McDonough, but had to drop out of the film due to scheduling conflicts with Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). So Nick Jonas was cast in his place.
  
  
• Shailene Woodley was originally cast as Ruby Roundhouse/Martha, but had to drop out of the film due to scheduling conflicts with Big Little Lies (2017). So Karen Gillan was cast instead.
  
  
• Colin Hanks portrayed adult Alex Vreeke. He is not credited.

• In the original Jumanji (1995) the game ended up being washed ashore on a beach in a French-speaking country. That game was thrown into a river in 1969, which means that 48 years had passed between these two movies. It is found by two French speaking girls but the year is not known, but it is known that Alex’s dad finds it on a beach in 1996.
  
  
• At Seaplane McDonough’s camp, there is a sign that says “Alan Parrish was here” on it. Seaplane states he found the camp and that it used to be Alan’s. Alan Parrish was the name of Robin Williams’s character in Jumanji (1995), who was stuck in the game for twenty-six years. Williams died three years before this sequel was released, and as promised, the makers honored the late actor’s work in some way.
  
  
• While Jumanji has turned into a video game, parts of it pay homage to its previous board game mode:
  • two clues appear as a rhyming couplet.
  • Another clue appears in the form of an elephant token. This was Alan Parrish’s game piece from Jumanji (1995). Alan was the last player who was stuck in the game for over twenty years.
  • Albino rhinos appear in Jumanji. As a board game, one of its board game pieces was a white rhino.
  • Immediately upon ending the game, the aerial view of Jumanji shows interlocking paths that resemble Jumanji’s board game layout.
    
    
• The statues in the jungle set are modeled after the board game pieces in the original Jumanji (1995).
  
  
• If Dwayne Johnson could play any other role in the film, he’d play Jack Black’s character, Bethany. Johnson said, “I know how much fun [Jack] had every day playing a 16-year-old self-obsessed girl.”
  
  
• Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart are known for their intensive workout routines, but it was Karen Gillan – whose character is an expert in various martial arts and “dance fighting” – who did the most extensive work with the stunt team to learn the fight choreography for her scenes.
  
  
• Ruby Roundhouse’s outfit was influenced by that of Lara Croft, the protagonist of the Tomb Raider video games and movies. Martha comments on how impractical the outfit is to wear in the jungle.
  
  
• Dwayne Johnson pitched the name ‘Smolder’ to Jake Kasdan via text. “What if his name was Smolder, but he had this unique ability to just Smolder. And he’s like, I love it.”
  
  
• Frequently throughout the movie, the first few notes of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” can be heard mixed into the musical cues. In the original Jumanji (1995), the monkeys are drawn to the electronics store when they see monkeys from The Wizard of Oz (1939) on a television in the window.
  
  
• Besides the “Over the Rainbow” music heard in the soundtrack, another reference to The Wizard of Oz (1939) is when Nigel is about to send Fridge back to the real world. He says “I’ll miss you the most”, which is the same line Dorothy says to the Scarecrow just before she goes back to Kansas.
  
  
• To film the Albino Rhino sequence, the cast spent days harnessed into a full-size, customized helicopter mounted on a special-effects gimbal rig elevated twenty feet in the air.
  
  
• Ser’Darius Blain (Fridge) is actually 30 years old and Nick Jonas (Alex) is 25 years old, while Alex Wolff, Morgan Turner and Madison Iseman (Spencer, Martha and Bethany) range from 18-20 years old.
  
  
• Jack Black says the script in some ways reminded him of The Breakfast Club (1985).
  
  
• When the trailers first came out, Ruby’s outfit created some controversy. Karen Gillan admitted that the costume was too sexual, but believes that was the point. She wouldn’t have done the movie and worn the costume if there was no purpose attached to it, and a different actress would’ve been cast as the avatar.
  
  
• Kevin Hart was sick during the filming of the helicopter scene.
  
  
• Bravestone is the only avatar to land on his feet every time he regenerates.
  
  
• Martha/Ruby Roundhouse was foreshadowed in the original film. At the end of Jumanji (1995) when Alan Parish and Sarah Whittle meet Judy and Peter Shepherd again and also meet their parents. The name of Judy and Peter’s mother is revealed as Martha.
  
  
• One ending planned for the film was to have Jumanji become a mobile phone game and appear on phones across Brantford.