Mild spoilers ahead for Jumanji: The Next Level.
Jumanji: The Next Level just opened in theaters, two years after the surprise hit Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. No one saw that movie going toe-to-toe with Star Wars at the box office, but it made almost $1 billion worldwide. Thanks to the success of Welcome to the Jungle, the Next Level team could return to ideas that had to be cut from the previous film.
In ReelBlend's exclusive interview with Jumanji: The Next Level producers Hiram Garcia and Matt Tolmach, Garcia shared behind-the-scenes scoop on the action scene they had tried to get in the first movie -- that wild rope-bridge chase with the monkeys.
One of my favorite scenes that actually has a cool story to it is the bridge scene. And what's cool about that is we'd actually been working on that sequence since the first movie. We had big ambitions for that. We wanted to put it in Welcome to the Jungle. [We] didn't have enough time -- or money -- to pull it off. But that was something that had been in all of our minds for years. And so to finally be able to put it… we knew that was going in this movie. We went right back to it because knew it was gonna be big, awesome, and for us it was always like the biggest challenge they had ever encountered yet. Where, you know, tons of them are losing their lives. Everything's changing. But that sequence came off really awesome. And it was actually one of the first things we shot in the movie. Like we kicked off, right out of the gate. It was Karen and Aquafina's first day together. They were doing stunts and swinging on crazy stuff and they just jumped right into it, because it was such a big monster sequence, and it turned out really badass.
Jumanji: The Next Level was already teasing that epic bridge chase -- including Karen Gillan's big swing -- right in the first trailer. Gillan returned as her Welcome to the Jungle avatar Ruby Roundhouse, with Awkwafina playing a new character in the sequel.
This Jumanji movie was reportedly made on a production budget around $125 million, which wouldn't include the healthy marketing campaign. But the movie just opened and not only topped the domestic box office, it's already made $152.5 million overseas for a current worldwide total of $212.6 million, per Box Office Mojo. That's quick work!
Will there be another Jumanji movie after this one -- technically Jumanji 4 after Robin Williams' original 1995 movie, Welcome to the Jungle, and now The Next Level? The ending potentially set up another sequel, and the producers have already talked about the huge expanse of the Jumanji universe.
So if fans want more and the stars show interest in returning, maybe the Jumanji team can take any ideas they didn't have the time or money to use in The Next Level and use them for the next movie. What will that one be called, do you think?
Watch our video interviews with the stars of Jumanji: The Next Level and check out the movie now in theaters. It's just one of many films worth checking out in December 2019. Yes, Jumanji will be going toe-to-toe with Star Wars once again, but here's why the adventure team isn't worried.
