The seminal children’s book Jumanji from author/illustrator Chris Van Allsburg was brought to life as a live-action movie in 1995 starring Robin Williams, which became a box-office success, though the franchise wasn’t revived in earnest until 2017 with Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Van Allsburg did recently explain how the studio wanted to continue the success of the concept of a board game that came to life, and since he wasn’t a fan of the direction of that planned sequel, he instead developed Zathura, which served as a spiritual sequel to Jumanji and became a movie in 2005.
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The concept of the book and movie Jumanji centers around a board game in which dangerous threats come to life in the real world, with the 1995 movie seeing our heroes complete the game, only for the game to wash up on the shores of France. Van Allsburg recalled to SYFY WIRE that, after arriving in Europe, the game would find its way back to Washington, D.C.
“I don’t know if there was a single writer involved, but [they] decided that that event happened in Normandy, that the game had floated across the ocean,” Van Allsburg shared with the outlet. “The game ends up in an antique shop in Normandy and stays there for some period of time.”
The creator then noted that it would be the President himself that would bring the object back to the U.S.
“He’s promised his kids to bring back a souvenir from his trip,” Van Allsburg pointed out. “And so, the presidential entourage stops at this little antique shop in Normandy and the President goes in and finds this old board game, Jumanji. He packs it up and he takes it back to Washington, D.C. and then all the mayhem that the game can generate is generated in the White House and the halls of Congress …They had some crazy stuff. I think there was a gorilla that climbs the Washington Monument in an homage to King Kong.”
Both the original story and 1995 movie embrace a sense of whimsy and silliness, though the nature of the concept can be understandably intense for younger audiences, with the author revealing one plan for the sequel was to push things further by cutting animals in half with airplane propellors.
“Then they were able to reassemble themselves into different parts of an animal,” Van Allsburg described. “It was just a really lame excuse to see what some CGI artist could do. Totally idiotic.”
Another abandoned idea would be that circus performers would find the Jumanji board game and use the items that have come to life for the circus to draw in bigger crowds. Given the star power of Robin Williams, the studio hoped to get him to return, with Van Allsburg noting that one concept involved a sequel in which William’s character is turned into a giant frog.
“Robin Williams would [only] have to put in four or five days establishing his human character and at the end, [we’d see] his revitalized human character,” the creator confessed. “But the middle of the film would be driven by this loudmouthed toad voiced by Robin Williams. The producers liked it, but that one didn’t really get up and go either. Looking back on it, I think it could’ve been great.”
Van Allsburg would instead develop Zathura, which swapped the jungle-themed Jumanji game for a space-based adventure, resulting in Sony pursuing an adaptation of that over a Jumanji continuation.
“I thought if Sony saw that the author of the original material was publishing a book that was a space adventure game calledย Zathura, where a house went to outer space, maybe that would at least give them pause and reconsider,’” Van Allsburg admitted. “So I was surprised and happy when Sony read the book proposal and said, ‘We’ll option that right now.’ [Sony boss] Amy Pascal was enthusiastic about it and said, ‘Yeah, this is a good idea.’”
Despite being directed by Jon Favreau, Zathura didn’t capture the public’s attention like Jumanji, with it not being until 2017 that Jumanji was revived with Welcome to the Jungle. That movie earned the sequel Jumanji: The Next Level and another entry is expected to be on the way.
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