Entertainment

The Rock Promises to Honor Robin Williams in New Jumanji Film

When the Jumanji reboot was first announced last year, the internet was in a tizzy, not least of all because it was announced about a year after Robin Williams’ death, who starred in the original film.

Those are criticisms I understand, but I will never understand the constant railing against reboots, mostly because it’s us who creates these reboots. People can complain about reboots all they want, but as long as they keep making gobs of money, Hollywood is going to keep making them. If you want more original films, go see the ones that are being made.

Furthermore, reboots do have a place and purpose, depending on how they’re done. Reboots can do a lot for a stale story, or one that’s stuck in its time. Or just if the reboot has a good team behind it, like in the case of Jumanji.

The star of the new film is Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who everyone should adore on principle, but especially after this Instagram post:

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

A photo posted by therock (@therock) on

The paragraph on Robin Williams got me unexpectedly choked up, but also put that little extra faith in me for this film:

“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.”

I trust you, Dwayne.

He also mentions in the post there will be five big roles, including himself.

He took to Instagram in more recent posts to announce two more: Kevin Hart and Jack Black. There’s still a female role and another male role unannounced.

Jumanji is set to hit theaters on July 28, 2017. It’s directed by Jake Kasdan and so far stars Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black.

What do you think of this movie and Johnson’s post? You can sound off below!

Source: The Mary Sue

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