Before we dreamt of joining the intricate, hyper-realistic worlds depicted upon our gaming machines of choice, we dreamt of owning a copy of Jumanji. What, you mean you didn’t? Despite that board game being horrifying and potentially deadly, I always thought how fun it would be to summon an entire jungle with the roll of a dice, especially if I were playing with Robin Williams and Kirsten Dunst. And now, thanks to rumors of a Jumanji reboot mentioned by Doug Belgrad, President of Columbia Pictures, supernatural board game films may no longer be a genre of the past.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Belgrad briefly mentioned the beloved 90s children’s movie (based on the 1981 children’s book) when discussing new directions for Columbia Pictures: “[My boss] has created a bit of a mandate to do more in the family space…We’re going to try and reimagine Jumanji and update it for the present.”
Oh Doug, don’t you know that it takes only one simple sentence to fuel a thousand reblogs of nostalgic Jumanji gifs on Tumblr? Frankly, I’m not sure what Jumanji in the present would look like — first of all, didn’t we already try that with Zathura, the film also based on a book by Chris Van Allsburg (author of Jumanji) that followed the adventures of children who discover a space-themed magic board game instead of a jungle-themed one? Would present Jumanji be played on an iPad? Will Robin Williams return as Alan Parrish, dismayed to see that thanks to the iTunes store and game pirating, every kid can summon lions with the roll of a virtual set of dice? Will we be looking at Jumanji: Now It’s On Facebook?
Even though reboots have a tendency to go terribly, terribly wrong (I’m looking at you, Columbia Pictures’Â Amazing Spider-Man), I’m going to go ahead and say I’m cautiously optimistic for a Jumanji reboot. Even though Zathura bombed at the box-office, it was still a fun movie, and what sort of young 20-something would I be if I didn’t blindly support all things relating to the 90s and my childhood?
What about you all, would you like to see a Jumanji reboot? Will the game remain a traditional board game, or will it be modernized for this generation of tech-savvy children? Will Jonathan Hyde escape from the game and seek revenge?
(via The Hollywood Reporter.)
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