You’d think all the trailers for upcoming major films would have been released during San Diego Comic-Con last weekend. But Sony Pictures decided to wait until today to drop the trailer for Jumanji: Open World, director Jake Kasdan’s sequel to his 2019 hit, Jumanji: The Next Level.
(Some spoilers for prior films in the franchise below but no major reveals.)
The original Jumanji film, released in 1995 and starring the late Robin Williams, was based on a 1981 children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg. Critics were kinda meh on the movie, but audiences loved it, and it has since become something of a classic. The 2005 film Zathura was a standalone spinoff based on another van Allsburg book. While it didn’t do nearly as well at the box office, it has held up well over the last 20 years and has its own small cadre of fans. There was also a forgettable animated TV series.
Kasdan gave the franchise a welcome major overhaul with the release of 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, updating the original board game into a vintage video game and giving us a hugely entertaining action-adventure. There were plenty of clever nods to gaming tropes and terrific comic performances by the cast. I mean, who could forget Bethany’s (Madison Iseman) delight upon being able to pee standing up as her male avatar, Professor Sheldon “Shelly” Oberon (Jack Black)? Or the dance fighting and Ruby Roundhouse’s (Karen Gillan)/Martha’s (Morgan Turner) hilariously inept attempts at flirting?
Small wonder Welcome to the Jungle racked up over $960 million at the global box office and spawned the equally successful 2019 sequel Jumanji: The Next Level. A third film was always in the cards: The Next Level featured a tantalizing mid-credits scene in which a heater repairman (Lamorne Morris) visits Spencer’s house, sees the broken video game console, and inadvertently triggers the game. The result: a herd of ostriches suddenly shows up outside Nora’s (Bebe Neuwirth) diner—shades of the original film, in which the in-game jungle invaded the real world until the players finished.
The COVID-19 pandemic paused the third film’s development, but things picked up again in 2024, and here we are. We don’t know many details about Open World, although star Dwayne Johnson—who played in-game avatar Dr. Xander “Smolder” Bravestone—let slip in 2019 that The Next Level‘s in-game villain, Jurgen the Brutal (Rory McCann), was actually the avatar of another unknown real-world player. In the new trailer, the avatars have also entered the real world, but they are stuck in demo mode. It’s only a matter of time before everyone gets sucked back into the game to set things right, with Spencer’s mom, Janice (Marin Hinkle), taking on Bravestone’s avatar.
The entire main cast is returning: Johnson, Black, Gillan, Neuwirth (who also appeared in the 1995 film), Turner, Hinkle, and Iseman; Kevin Hart as Franklin “Mouse” Finbar; Nick Jonas as Jefferson “Seaplane” McDonough; Awkwafina as Ming Flatfoot; Alex Wolff as Spencer Gilpin; Ser’Darius Blain as Fridge Johnson; Rhys Darby as Nigel Billingsley; and Danny DeVito as Spencer’s grandfather, Eddie. In addition, Dan Hildebrand plays Donatas, and Jack Jewkes plays Tyson. Burn Gorman, Nasim Pedrad, and Brittany O’Grady will also appear in as-yet-undisclosed roles.
Jumanji: Open World hits theaters on December 25, 2026.
