Jumanji 3 is tweaking its year-end holiday release plans.
The latest installment in the reinvigorated Sony Pictures franchise will now open in cinemas on Christmas Day of this year. It was originally set to open Dec. 11.
Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan are returning alongside filmmaker Jake Kasdan, who directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg.
Matt Tolmach, Johnson, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia an Kasdan are producing. Danny DeVito, Nick Jonas, Marin Hinkle, Bebe Neuwirth, Lamorne Morris and Rhys Darby are also returning for the latest installment, with Dan Hildebrand and Jack Jewkes joining as new cast members.
The big screen franchise was made famous with the 1995 movie adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg’s 1981 children’s book that starred the late Robin Williams. It took more than two decades to revive the series, which become a year-end holiday fixture in the late 2010s.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle opened domestically Dec. 20, 2017, on its way to grossing an odds-defying $404 million domestically and $960 million globally. A sequel, Jumanji: The Next Level, earned $802 million worldwide following its domestic debut over the Dec. 13-15 weekend in 2019.
It’s become commonplace for holiday event pics to open mid-month to provide some distance from the competition and, in many cases, ensure access to Imax screens.
Insiders at Columbia say the studio determined that Dec. 25 is a better date even if the Christmas weekend itself will be impacted by holiday celebrations. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is one of the most lucrative weeks of the year, allowing multiple movies to prosper. And holiday films that succeed can play well into January.
Tuesday’s Jumanji announcement comes amid heightened speculation as to whether Disney and Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday and Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Dune: Part Three will both stick to their Dec. 18 release dates. Even though Dune has an exclusive three-week run in Imax screens, some top studio executives and distribution chiefs believe Dune may move so as to not risk being overpowered by Avengers on opening weekend. Many believe Doomsday will be a juggernaut. Others counter that the holidays are a marathon, not a sprint, meaning that there is room for both. But now that Jumanji has moved, the Dec. 11-13 weekend is freed up.
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