Do you like Jumanji with Robin Williams? We have a funny story to tell you…

When was this supposed to come out?

On June 3, 1999, St. variety states that the Jumanji sequel has found its director and that the target release date is Christmas 2000, the same as the success of the first film, which was released on December 15, 1995 in the United States.

But what does this sequel, written by one of the first film’s screenwriters, Jonathan Hensley, and which we ultimately never see, have to say?

And what happened to the actor who played Peter in the first film?

what did he say?

At the end of Jumanji, the game stops at the beach. The idea was that it would be flown to Normandy (yes, across the Atlantic, then the English Channel) where it would end up in an antiques dealer’s shop. There, the American president, visiting to commemorate the 1944 landings, bought the game for pure nostalgic effect to offer it to his family.

That’s why Jumanji 2 would throw in the President of the United States and, as screenwriter Chris Van Allsburg (author of the book Jumanji) has SYFY : “All the disasters that the game can cause are unleashed in the White House and the halls of Congress. I think there was a gorilla that climbed the Washington Monument to honor King Kong.”

First of all, what interests the director and producers is to go further visually than the first film. How? By inventing new animals. Two animals are accidentally cut in half by a plane or helicopter, and, Van Alsburg shows, “They were able to assemble different parts of the animal.”

who were you with

The film was to be directed by Ken Ralston. Having started at George Lucas at ILM, he was then president of Imageworks, Sony Pictures’ special effects company. And Sony Pictures had the rights to Jumanji. Neither one nor two, Ralston was offered his first feature film with Jumanji 2, which would rely heavily on his visual effects.

None of the original cast members were expected to return, as the film focused on a new family (the family of the President of the United States) and the project was not far enough along to consider a star for this new feature film. . We just heard about Steve Buscemi as a traitorous Vice President who takes over the White House while the President plays in the Jumanji universe.

Why didn’t it happen?

In 1999, before the film was even made, Star Wars hit theaters, a phantom menace shot massively on green screen, opening up a field of visual possibilities to an entire generation weary of the advance of digital special effects in cinema. . It’s also a film that relies heavily – like its ’80s predecessors – on merchandising.

Suffice it to say that Jumanji 2 should feature new animals to make use of the new technology, but also – and above all? – will make it possible to sell toys not seen elsewhere, based on hybrid animals. It’s more than that It was confirmed at the time By Eva Martinoff, Vice President of Product Marketing, Sony:

It was difficult to identify the original because the animals were traditional and many companies sell animals such as giraffes and elephants. New characters have unique traits.

But in the early 2000s, when the film was supposed to be shot in late 1999, future director Ken Ralston left the project. The studio took a break and returned to the attack in 2002, announcing a new sequel with a new pitch and Robin Williams is coming backDirected by Dennis Duggan (The Devil, Big Daddy).

Finally, Chris Van Allsburg, author of the book and co-writer of the first film, offered another idea:

I said to myself: What if there was a space adventure inside the game Jumanji on the back of the board? Instead of playing Jumanji, a game where the jungle comes to your house, is it also a space adventure game where your house goes through space?’

And so Zathura: A Space Adventure was born, released in February 2006 under the direction of Jon Favreau, who killed the idea for Jumanji 2 before Dwayne Johnson took it up again, adapted it to the world of video games, and released Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle in 2017.