Sony is moving the next Jumanji forward with a November start in Los Angeles and a December 11, 2026 release date. Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan are back with Jake Kasdan directing. Brittany O’Grady and Burn Gorman join the cast, with Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg scripting. Matt Tolmach, Johnson, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia, and Kasdan are producing.
The project has been building quietly and now shifts into active production. That timing puts it on a familiar holiday runway where the last two films found long legs. Welcome to the Jungle earned 962.5 million worldwide in 2017 and The Next Level reached 800 million in 2019. Sony is clearly aiming for the same four quadrant crowd and repeat business through the end of the year.
Expect the core premise to hold. The modern Jumanji films trade the enchanted board game for a video game that pulls real world teens into avatar bodies played by Johnson, Hart, Black, and Gillan. The 2017 entry also nodded to the 1995 Robin Williams classic, so a few legacy winks would not be a surprise. Alex Wolff, Madison Iseman, Ser’Darius Blaine, and Morgan Turner are expected to return, as is Awkwafina from the 2019 film, though character details for O’Grady and Gorman are under wraps.
A Los Angeles shoot could hint at more game elements bleeding into the real world, a thread teased at the end of The Next Level. If that carries through, it gives Kasdan room to stage bigger set pieces without leaving the ensemble chemistry that powers the franchise. Casting news should move quickly once cameras roll, and plot clues usually follow soon after.
For families and general audiences, this is straightforward. It brings back the stars people already like, adds a couple of interesting faces, and lands on a date that has worked before. Unless the script makes a hard turn, this looks like a play for another crowd pleaser rather than a full reset.
Sources: The Hollywood Reporter, Yahoo Entertainment, JoBlo, Movie Insider, Wikipedia, GamesRadar+
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