Now that Amazon have purchased MGM to secure the rights to James Bond, and Men in Black: International flopped at the box office, the only notable active franchises Sony have at their disposal are the animated Hotel Transylvania, anything connected to the studio’s roster of Marvel characters, and the rebooted Jumanji.
As the only one of the ‘Big Five’ that don’t own and operate their own in-house streaming service either, Sony are in real danger of being left behind as Warner Bros., Paramount, Disney and Universal leave them in the dust in terms of both content and expansion. Welcome to the Jungle and The Next Level combined to earn close to $1.8 billion at the box office, so you can guarantee that more Jumanji is coming.
The last movie’s mid-credits stinger teased that the real world and the video game reality are set to collide, while Kevin Hart said the next installment is definitely going to happen eventually. However, nobody seems to have told Karen Gillan, after she admitted in a new interview that she’s not heard anything about the project as of yet.
“I actually don’t know anything about the next one. Nobody has spoken to me, so I think… I don’t know. I assume they’ll make one and I don’t know how they’re gonna tackle that. But I hope they make another one because it’s so much fun.”
Director and co-writer Jake Kasdan confirmed that Jumanji 4 was in early development back in April of last year, but looking at the jam-packed schedules of stars Hart, Gillan, Jack Black and Dwayne Johnson, finding the time to bring everyone back together could prove to be the biggest hurdle of all. The resurgent franchise surprised a lot of people with how fun and entertaining both of the latest chapters turned out to be, so there’s also increased expectations to live up to now that the property is riding a serious wave of critical, commercial and audience acclaim.