'Jumanji' movie could begin filming soon – do audiences like remakes?

A new take on the hit 1995 movie 'Jumanji' is set to star Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, and Kevin Hart. The original movie stars Robin Williams and Kirsten Dunst.

|
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Dwayne Johnson will star in a 'Jumanji' remake.

Production on the remake of the 1995 film “Jumanji” is reportedly moving forward as new takes on stories continue to be big business in Hollywood. 

The new “Jumanji” film, which is set to star Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, and Kevin Hart, will start filming in Hawaii later this year, according to Pacific Business News. 

Pacific Business News writer Duane Shimogawa writes that state film commissioner Donne Dawson said those behind the “Jumanji” movie are currently looking for spots to film. 

The original movie stars Robin Williams and Kirsten Dunst and became one of the highest-grossing films of the year, a film in which two children find and play a magical board game that releases a man trapped for decades in it, along with a host of scary things that can only be stopped by finishing the game. 

Hollywood providing a new take on an old, successful story is, of course, nothing new. As studios continue to produce sequels to films that were successful or “reboots” (in which some new twist is put on the story), how often do these films work? 

The answer this summer was: far from always. Movies like “Independence Day: Resurgence,” which is a sequel to the 1996 action hit; “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows”; “Alice Through the Looking Glass”; and “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising” were viewed as disappointing financially.

When sequels or reboots do hit, though, they hit big. “Finding Dory,” the animated sequel to Pixar’s “Finding Nemo,” is now the highest-grossing film of the year so far. 

Of the 100 highest-grossing films this year so far, of the movies that were sequels, reboots, remakes, or continuations of a story in some way, nine have grossed more than $100 million domestically. (And some of these were remakes, including "The Jungle Book" and "The Legend of Tarzan.") Eighteen have not so far. 

When they struggle, it may be an issue with sequels coming too quickly. “It's all about forging new territory and sometimes waiting until significant momentum and interest is built up again, something Hollywood isn’t consistently good at,” Jeff Bock, a box office analyst, told the Hollywood Reporter. “There is something to be said about allowing creative forces time to refuel and recharge. However, the pace of today’s studio machinations makes that nearly impossible. For a while, [young adult] adaptations were arriving year in and year out, and we saw the negative results from that accelerated pace as most became box-office burnouts.”

Timing the films can be a delicate balance, however. The new “Jumanji” movie will be attempting what “Independence Day: Resurgence” did – releasing a sequel or a new version of a movie decades after the original. Gary Susman of Moviefone cited the long delay as one reason why “Independence” didn’t do well at the box office.

“Two decades is an awfully long time to wait between installments…,” Mr. Susman wrote. “The kind of modern-day disaster-film blockbuster that Roland Emmerich pioneered with the first ‘Independence Day’ became commonplace by the time he made the second one.... It's easy to forget how novel ‘Independence Day’ was – if, indeed, you're old enough to remember it at all.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to 'Jumanji' movie could begin filming soon – do audiences like remakes?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2016/0728/Jumanji-movie-could-begin-filming-soon-do-audiences-like-remakes
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe