It was back in 2012 that the first rumors started to swirl about a potential remake for the Robin Williams movie Jumanji. Last week, those rumors came back with a vengeance when it was reported that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Kevin Hart were in talks to star in the film. Today, The Rock has taken to social media to make a public statement about Jumanji and, yes, the rumors were true, at least in part. The Rock will bring Jumanji back to the screen, as a producer.
The Rock took to his Instagram account to announce that Seven Bucks Productions, of which he is a co-founder, will be producing the Jumanji remake. The Rock begins his post by saying that he loves the script, but then follows it up by saying that doing some polishing of it will be one his first tasks now that’s on board the project. He also says he’ll be meeting with the film’s director, Jake Kasdan, who directed Sex Tape and Bad Teacher previously. Johnson will also be meeting with Matt Tolmach, who produced the Amazing Spider-Man films and will be also be handling Sony’s side of Spider-Man: Homecoming; Jumanji is also being handled at Sony.
The Rock talks about so much work that he’ll be doing on Jumanji that we almost missed the thing he didn’t say. He never mentions acting in it. The Rock closes his post by saying that casting for the film would be fun, but he never says that he’ll be playing a part himself. It’s probably a safe bet that The Rock will star, everything else that Seven Bucks Productions has produced has been a starring vehicle for Dwayne Johnson, from HBO’s Ballers to the upcoming Baywatch and Rampage films. Still, it’s possible that the reason Johnson doesn’t say anything about acting in the film is because he’s only planning on producing the movie.
There’s also no mention of Kevin Hart being involved in the project. It’s possible that The Rock is holding on to that piece of news for a future Instagram post; he’s been a marketing machine when it comes to announcing Baywatch news via that account and it’s very likely we can look forward to a lot of the same for Jumanji.
Finally, there’s one other item, at the very end of The Rock’s post, that we couldn’t help but notice. Amongst all the hashtags that you would expect to see regarding a Jumanji movie, like #JungleLife, is another one that seems very telling, #JustPressStart. One does not traditionally press start to begin playing a board game, which makes us wonder, is the new Jumanji a video game?
Who would you like to see Dwayne Johnson cast in the Jumanji remake? Let us know in the comments.
