In 1995, Joe Johnston directed Robin Williams in Jumanji, an adaptation of the Chris Van Allsburg book that became a global sensation. The film went on to gross over $260 million at the global box office (over $550 million when adjusting for inflation) and spawned not only an animated series spinoff but an actual board game that fans hoped might secretly start playing drums in the middle of the night. Despite its success, the film stayed a singular entity for decades, though Zathura acted as a spiritual sequel back in 2005, until 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle took players inside the game in a unique twist on the genre.
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Starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan, that film would go on to even greater success, making over $960 million at the global box office and spawning the 2019 sequel, Jumanji: The Next Level. The drums have been quiet since that movie premiered (it failed to match the success of its predecessor, but still brought in over $800 million) but now they’re starting to beat. A first look at the upcoming fourth Jumanji has arrived and it confirms fans are finally getting the sequel they always wanted.
Jumanji 4 Finally Brings the Game Back to the Real World
Sony Pictures has released the first official photo as production begins on the new Jumanji movie, and with it comes the confirmation fans have been waiting for. Though the new Jumanji movies have been very successful, they have flipped the script on the original by showing life inside the game and not the contents of the game spilling out into the real world like the 1995 film (and book) did. As fans may recall, Jumanji: The Next Level concluded with a tease that the game had been fixed and the jungle world was starting to spill over into the real one. Furthermore, the ending of the original Jumanji set up a similar tease that the game would be played in yet another location. Now, thirty years after the first movie, the first photo confirms the sequel we’ve been waiting for is happening.
In the image, Johnson, Hart, Black, and Gillan all appear as their characters from the first two films, now occupying the real world and standing on a city block. The first two films in the movie saw these four as avatars for the kids sucked into the game, taking on the personas to comedic effect. What’s unclear about these characters now being in the real world is what their personalities will be like, since we assume they will now have to cross paths with humans that previously inhabited them in the story. Johnson, for example, is the confident archaeologist Dr. Xander “Smolder” Bravestone, who is the avatar for the neurotic Spencer (Alex Wolff) in the films. One assumes that Bravestone and Spencer will share the screen in the new film, but exactly how remains to be seen.
To keep hype levels at a high, Johnson posted a video from the set as well, revealing a major Easter egg in the new movie that connects it to the first film: the dice from the first movie that his character wears as a necklace.
“It’s so good to be shooting in Los Angeles,” Johnson said on social media. “I have not shot a film in Los Angeles in…I don’t know when, so it feels so good to bring a production back home to Los Angeles and have our hard-working crew sleep in their own bed every night, very cool. Especially just a big fun movie like Jumanji, as you see, a little Easter egg with Doctor Bravestone, the dice from the original Jumanji with Robin Williams as a show of respect and a way of honoring Robin and this entire franchise that he started, as we film our very last Jumanji, big finale.”
The fourth Jumanji movie, which is currently without an official title, arrives Christmas 2026. Based on the first photo, it appears to be picking up directly after the last movie in the series and may very well become a Christmas-set adventure.
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