Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle traded in the board game from the classic Robin Williams film for a video game system that transported the players into the jungle of Jumanji. The players may have thought they beat the game, but this is a videogame (and a massive studio franchise) and there are levels to this. Jumanji: The Next Level will explore those levels and as some new images show, the film will take the cast out of the jungle. Take a look:
Like any good videogame, Jumanji: The Next Level appears to be changing up the scenery to keep things fresh. The film will take the avatars played by Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan and Jack Black out of the sweltering and dangerous jungle of Jumanji and into a significantly less tropical environment. As you can see in this image from Total Film, the players will find themselves in a wintry level of the game, surrounded by snow-capped mountains.
Just as certain videogames allow you to upgrade armor and equipment and change your character’s looks, the players’ avatars are bundled up for the change in temperatures now that they’re out of the jungle. Jack Black’s Shelly Oberon manages to still look professorial in his winter gear and Kevin Hart’s Mouse Finbar appears to be dressed for maximum warmth.
Karen Gillan’s Ruby Roundhouse has ditched the much-discussed short shorts and crop top for something a bit more seasonal, while The Rock’s Smolder Bravestone opts for like a three-quarter-sleeve shirt in an environment that looks to never get above freezing. Presumably this is because he can’t fit his arms in a long-sleeve jacket. Speaking of jackets, Nick Jonas’ Seaplane McDonough has an awesome one here.
Now that they’re out of the jungle, mosquitoes and snakes might not be a problem, but hypothermia and avalanches could very well rob the players of a few of their lives here. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a yeti as the unofficial boss to this level of the film. This winter wonderland won’t be the only new environment in this sequel. The Next Level has multiple levels. Check it out:
This next image from the film shows that the cast of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle will be enduring extreme temperatures on both ends of the spectrum in this movie. I imagine we could even see these two levels back to back, where the characters go from the desert to the mountains and begin to freeze or need to shed layers of clothing when arriving in the sandy dunes.
In speaking to Total Film, star Jack Black even speculates on another environment that Jumanji can go to for what I assume we can call The Next Next Level or The Level After Next or Jumanji: The Final Frontier. The actor says he’d like to go to space and if we’re being fair, this franchise has already kind of sort of done that.
Jumanji is based on a book by Chris Van Allsburg and that book has a sequel called Zathura. Zathura received the feature film treatment in 2005 but the film ignored the book’s connection to Jumanji. Perhaps a future Jumanji movie could revisit the idea of Zathura and take the characters to space. The beauty of this kind of story is that there are no logical limitations that would disallow for it.
It seems possible, which makes me wonder, what franchise makes it to space first, Jumanji, The Fast & The Furious or Mission: Impossible?
Jumanji: The Next Level arrives in theaters on December 13. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of all the big movies still to come this year.
