Jumanji

• 1. Roll The Dice

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  In Jumanji, every roll of the dice pulls a piece of the jungle into the real world, creatures included. Jumanji is an American media franchise built on that single premise. The game refuses to stay on the table. Its dangers keep arriving until somebody reaches the end, and reaching the end means surviving everything the jungle sends. Over the years the game has trapped children, teenagers and grown adults, and each group has had to find its own way to win. Several questions run through this franchise. Where did the game come from, and who first found it? Why would a jungle adventure ever end up in outer space? What happens when an old board game decides it would rather be a video game? And can a series built on a game that never lets go actually reach its last turn? The answers begin with the book that started it.

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• 2. The Books Next Door

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  Peter and Judy are the first children to play the game, in Chris Van Allsburg's 1981 book Jumanji. Every roll brings the jungle and its creatures to life around them. To put their world right, they must finish the game and reach the golden city that gives it its name. Once they are done, they get rid of it. Two young brothers who live next door find it afterward.

  Those brothers, Danny and Walter, take over in Van Allsburg's 2002 book Zathura. They find Jumanji but choose not to play it. Instead they spot a second game on the same board, one with a space theme, and they begin that one. The rules echo the first. Elements of the game break into reality, and the boys can restore normal life only by completing it.

  When the first film version arrived in 1995, Van Allsburg shared its story credit with two screen writers, Jim Strain and Greg Taylor.

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• 3. The First Film

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  Robin Williams plays Alan Parrish III in Jumanji, the 1995 film directed by Joe Johnston. Two children find a magical board game and start to play. Their game frees a man who has been trapped inside it for decades, and it unleashes a host of jungle dangers along with him. Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce play the children, Judy and Peter Shepherd. Bonnie Hunt appears as Sarah Whittle, Bebe Neuwirth as Nora Shepherd and Jonathan Hyde as Professor Van Pelt.

  Scott Kroopf and William Teitler produced the film for TriStar Pictures. Every later film in the series came from Columbia Pictures instead. Both studios are subsidiaries of Sony Pictures.

  James Horner composed the score, Thomas E. Ackerman served as cinematographer and Robert Dalva edited the picture. The finished film runs 104 minutes. Horner's soundtrack album, about 51 minutes long, came out on the Epic Soundtrax label.

  The film also inspired an animated television series, which ran for three seasons between 1996 and 1999.

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• 4. A Detour Into Space

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  Jon Favreau directed Zathura: A Space Adventure, in which a house is hurled through the depths of space by the game its two young occupants are playing. The brothers reason that the only way home is to finish. Jonah Bobo and Josh Hutcherson play Danny and Walter Budwing. Kristen Stewart appears as Lisa Budwing, Tim Robbins as Mr. Budwing and Frank Oz is credited as the Robot.

  The film contains no direct references to Jumanji, and its plot stands entirely on its own. Even so, the studio marketed it as taking place in the same fictional universe. Favreau discourages anyone from calling it a direct sequel, since he did not particularly like Jumanji.

  The screenplay is credited to John Kamps and David Koepp, and the film is adapted from Van Allsburg's book. Michael De Luca joined Scott Kroopf and William Teitler as a producer. John Debney wrote the score, Guillermo Navarro shot the picture and Dan Lebental edited it. The running time is 101 minutes. Debney's soundtrack album, roughly 44 minutes long, was released by Varèse Sarabande.

  The jungle would not return to theaters until 2017.

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• 5. Avatars And Deserts

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  Twenty-two years after the events of the 1995 film, a neglected board game in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle turns itself into a video game. Ignored in favor of more modern entertainment, it simply changes form. Four high school teenagers are pulled into the game's jungle and become the avatars of the characters they chose. Later they find another victim trapped there. They can only escape by completing the game. Along the way each of them discovers the best of themselves and wins with a new sense of heroism. The film is a direct sequel to the 1995 original.

  Jake Kasdan directed. The cast is led by Dwayne Johnson as Dr. Xander "Smolder" Bravestone, with Kevin Hart as Franklin "Mouse" Finbar, Jack Black as Professor Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon and Karen Gillan as Ruby Roundhouse. Alex Wolff, Ser'Darius Blain, Madison Iseman and Morgan Turner play the four teenagers, Spencer Gilpin, Anthony "Fridge" Johnson, Bethany Walker and Martha Kaply. Nick Jonas appears as Jefferson "Seaplane" McDonough and Bobby Cannavale as Van Pelt. Chris McKenna is credited with the story, and Matt Tolmach and William Teitler produced. Henry Jackman composed the score, Gyula Pados was the cinematographer and the film runs 119 minutes. Jackman's soundtrack album lasts an hour and came out on Sony Masterworks.

  Jumanji: The Next Level, released in 2019, sends the team of friends back in to rescue one of their own. Nothing there is as they expect. They must cross terrain from arid deserts to snowy mountains to escape. Kasdan directed again and wrote the screenplay with Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg. Johnson joined Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia, Kasdan and Matt Tolmach as a producer. Danny DeVito plays Eddie Gilpin, Danny Glover plays Milo Walker and Awkwafina plays Ming Fleetfoot. The film runs 123 minutes.

  The money these two films earned would dwarf everything the franchise had made before.

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• 6. The Box Office Ledger

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  Four films, one enchanted board game and about $2 billion at the global box office is the franchise's combined total. The 1995 original grossed $262,821,940 worldwide on a budget of $65 million, and $100,499,940 of that came from North America. It opened on the 15th of December 1995 to mixed reviews. Its Metacritic score is 41, based on 19 reviews, though audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave it an A-minus.

  Zathura opened on the 11th of November 2005 and earned $65,079,104 worldwide. Its budget was $65 million. Its Metacritic score is 67 from 30 reviews, and audiences gave it a B-plus.

  Welcome to the Jungle opened on the 20th of December 2017 and became the franchise's biggest hit. It grossed $962,542,945 worldwide against a $90 million budget. Its Metacritic score is 58 from 44 reviews, CinemaScore audiences gave it an A-minus and PostTrak recorded 84 percent.

  The Next Level opened on the 13th of December 2019 with a budget of $125 million. It earned $801,693,929 worldwide. It holds a 72 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 249 reviews and a Metacritic score of 58 from 37 reviews. Audiences gave it an A-minus. Critics responded positively to all three films that followed the original.

  Those returns left room for experiments beyond film, and several of them turned out far less successful.

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• 7. Beyond The Screen

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  On the 14th of December 2017, Jumanji: The Mobile Game arrived on Android and iOS. Idiocracy Games developed it, NHN Entertainment published it and it was based on Welcome to the Jungle. On the 2nd of May 2018 it was removed from Google Play and the App Store. It became unplayable on the 24th of May.

  Jumanji: The VR Adventure fared no better. MWM Immersive developed it and Sony Pictures Virtual Reality published it. It reached Steam for the HTC Vive on the 17th of January 2018. Versions for Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR were announced and then canceled, after heavy criticism of its poor graphics and hardware performance. Steam delisted it on the 9th of February 2018.

  Earlier games reached back to the original film. Jumanji: A Jungle Adventure Game Pack came out on the 9th of October 1996, for Microsoft Windows in North America only. Studio Interactive developed it and Philips Interactive Media published it. It offered five action-arcade minigames based on popular scenes from the film. A party game called Jumanji reached Europe alone on PlayStation 2 in 2006, from developer Atomic Planet Entertainment and publisher Blast! Entertainment. In 2007 Fujishoji released a pachinko game that used clips from the film and 3D rendered CGI anime-style character designs.

  Zathura had its own game. High Voltage Software developed the action-adventure and 2K Games published it on the 3rd of November 2005 for PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

  Outright Games later published two titles built on the recent films. Funsolve developed Jumanji: The Video Game, based on both Welcome to the Jungle and The Next Level, and it launched on the 8th of November 2019 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows. A PlayStation 5 version followed on the 22nd of October 2021. Cradle Games developed Jumanji: Wild Adventures, released on the 3rd of November 2023 for PlayStation 5, Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, Xbox Series X and Series S.

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• 8. The Final Round

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  In December 2019, Dwayne Johnson revealed how the next film would treat Jurgen the Brutal, the villain of The Next Level. Jurgen would turn out to be an avatar in the game, and the story would explore who was controlling him. The film became Jumanji: Open World.

  In March 2020, Jake Kasdan confirmed early developments on a follow-up and said the core cast of the previous two films would stay. The following month he said the story was in development. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the project. In October 2022, producer Hiram Garcia said Kasdan would prioritize it after finishing his work on Red One. In March 2023, Kevin Hart indicated that the film in development would be the last in the series.

  In October 2024, the film was given a release date. By November 2024, Kasdan had said he was interested in having Kirsten Dunst and Bonnie Hunt reprise their roles from the original film. A promotional poster appeared at CinemaCon in 2025, which began the marketing. In October 2025, Brittany O'Grady and Burn Gorman joined the cast, and principal photography was set to start the following month.

  The film was first scheduled for the 11th of December 2026. On the 24th of March 2026 the date moved back two weeks. If Kasdan gets his wish, Dunst and Hunt will step back into their 1995 roles when Jumanji: Open World reaches theaters on the 25th of December 2026.

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