If you hadn’t heard yet there’s a new Jumanji movie set to be released next year, in 2017, starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Kevin Hart. Though individual roles have not yet been listed on IMDB I think it’s safe to assume that The Rock will be playing the Robin Williams/Alan Parrish in this Jumanji reboot, even if the script is entirely different, because he’s the biggest name celebrity currently attached to the project.
Naturally this is making some people uneasy, as Robin Williams is perhaps the most beloved comedic actor of our lifetime’s. In order to assuage some fears fans might have of the Jumanji reboot The Rock took to Instagram yesterday to share the first photo from the movie set, and a heartfelt caption that includes a story about the first time he met Robin Williams (very early on in Dwayne’s career):
The caption reads:
And the #JUMANJI magic begins.
Excellent meeting with our director Jake Kasdan, producer Matt Tolmach, and our @SevenBucksProd team to work on our new re-imagining of this amazing story.
I felt like in order to craft something cool we should begin where it all started. Award winning writer Chris Van Allsburg’s source material of JUMANJI. Chris also wrote THE POLAR EXPRESS (later adapted by Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks) and has a very special & magical way of storytelling.
I’m feelin’ good and confident stepping into these shoes as a producer as well as actor to bring you something great that you and your entire fam can enjoy.
An important thing that I want to be honest and bring up is Robin Williams. The love and respect I have for this man is boundless. You have my word, we will honor his name and the character of “Alan Parrish” will stand alone and be forever immortalized in the world of JUMANJI in an earnest and cool way. I have an idea of what to do and I think his family will be proud. I also think Robin is somewhere lookin’ down and laughing, remembering the first time we met backstage and I (for the first time ever) was a star struck bumbling idiot that couldn’t even get my words out. Idiot. He literally calmed me down w/ that smile and laugh. But that’s for another fun story down the road.
We got a great team assembled already over at our home base of SONY and now we build from here.
Here’s another fun part… in the original movie there were three big roles. In our new story there’s now FIVE. Been so damn cool to see all my actor buddies push their projects aside so hopefully they can come play in our world. Should have cool casting announcements this week. Will keep you posted.
#TheMagicBegins #JustPressStart #JUMANJI
This certainly doesn’t squash all fears of the Jumanji reboot bastardizing the original and Robin Williams’ legacy in that movie, but it was a nice story shared by The Rock, and it was a great first announcement that work has begun on set. The Rock is one of the most stand up guys in all of Hollywood, and I don’t believe that he’d take on this project if he thought it would in any way taint the legacy of Robin Williams’ original…I just hope I’m right about this.