BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Box Office: ‘Jumanji’ Used The ‘Jurassic World’ Playbook For A Successful Blockbuster Reboot

This article is more than 4 years old.

Unless it drops dead today, Jumanji: The Next Level will end tonight just past the $472 million global cume of It Chapter Two. It’ll soon be the second-biggest Hollywood release of the year, behind Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw ($759 million) that isn’t a Disney flick or an MCU or DC comic book movie. And with $96 million in global grosses last weekend, it could end its run with around $680 million on a $120 million budget. Sure, that’s a 29% comedown from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, but A) I could be way low on the long-term math and B) Sony would be thrilled in Venom 2 only drops 29% from Venom’s $854 million finish. Moreover, critics and audiences seem to like the movie, and the mid-credits cookie sets up a cliffhanger for an inspired sequel pitch.

Vague Jumanji: The Next Level and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom spoilers…!

Most successful A-level revivals or reboots were for franchises that, in their day, were already A-level brands. Think Casino Royale, Batman Begins, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Star Trek and Jurassic World. As noted following The Next Level’s $59 million domestic debut, Sony’s revival of Jumanji is unprecedented in modern times. Columbia took a solid B-level smash hit (Jumanji earned $100 million domestic and $262 million worldwide in 1995/1996) and remolded it into an A-level global blockbuster franchise. Most successful A-level revivals or reboots were for franchises that, in their day, were already A-level brands. Think Force Awakens, Casino Royale, Batman Begins, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Star Trek and Jurassic World. Sony and friends (producer Matt Tolmach, director Jake Kasdan, etc.) crafted a sequel to Jumanji that wasn’t remotely reliant on franchise nostalgia or IP awareness to sell itself to moviegoers.

They put a kid-friendly cast (Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan and Nick Jonas), in a plot that cast them as video game avatars “embodied” by teenagers who had gotten sucked into a video game. As such, the humor came from the against-type characterizations and the ample (and gentle) mockery of video game tropes. It was the “cool new idea” that usually only gets teased at the end of the first sequel which forces audiences to sit through a rehash of the previous film. Unlike Independence Day: Resurgence and Pacific Rim: Uprising, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle didn’t wait until the next sequel to “take the fight to the enemy of their home world.” As such, the film legged it to $404 million domestic, from a $51 million Wed-Sun Christmas opening, and $962 million worldwide.

The trajectory thus far for the Jumanji series is like Universal’s Jurassic World revamp. Colin Trevorrow and friends offered the cool new hook (“the park has been open for years and folks are already getting bored with clone dinosaurs”) in the first new sequel rather than making folks suffer through a rehash of Jurassic Park. Conversely, Independence Day: Resurgence brought back most of the cast from the first ID4 (sans Will Smith) but essentially just remade the first movie at a quicker pace and with less melodrama. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jumanji: The Next Level brought back the new characters/actors (in that case, Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt) for a sequel that, yes, felt a bit like a previous installment. Both sequels teased similar cliffhangers, with the dangerous animals being unleashed into the world.

Jurassic World 3, opening June 11, 2021, will combine the heroes of Jurassic World and Jurassic Park (Sam Neil, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum) in a world where the cloned dinosaurs now live side-by-side with everyone else in cities, suburbs and rural areas. Meanwhile, the tease at the end of The Next Level merely shows the Jumanji game accidentally being reactivated with animals running loose through the small-town locale of the first two movies. Sure, this could just be a sequel tag of no consequence, or it could set up a Jumanji 4 that harkens back to the first Robin Williams/Kristen Dunst/Bonnie Hunt adventure. Or, it could be a Jumanji throwback that also sees the sequel’s young cast interacting with the actual in-game variations, now loose in our world, of Dr. Bravestone, Ruby Roundhouse and the rest.

I don’t know if Sony will go this route for Jumanji: Game Over (or whatever they end up calling it), but it’s almost too good of a hook not to use. Heck, especially if Kristen Dunst and Bonnie Hunt can be coaxed to show up alongside a returning Bebe Neuwirth (who showed up at the end of The Next Level), then this two can be a kind of combo sequel. Moreover, the established popularity of the video game characters, along with the “new” appeal of seeing them as they actually are in the game (presumably obnoxiously arrogant and hyper-violent). The notion of the first and second Jumanji movies “crossing over” is only worthwhile because Sony made sure that the new Jumanji movies stood on their own while prioritizing character and story over IP exploitation and nostalgia.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedInCheck out my websiteSend me a secure tip