Sony Pictures has released a fresh trailer for Jumanji: Open World, the next entry in the long-running adventure series. The film is set to open on Christmas Day, giving families a lighter option during the holiday season.
The timing places it just after a crowded stretch at the box office. Mid-December is expected to be dominated by Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three, and the Jumanji sequel arrives the following week.
Jake Kasdan, who directed the 2019 hit Jumanji: The Next Level, returns to direct. The new trailer teases the series' usual wacky hijinks, along with a twist that calls back to the original 1995 film.
Kasdan reshaped the franchise with 2017's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. That film turned the original board game into a vintage video game and delivered a popular action-adventure. It earned more than $960 million worldwide, and the 2019 follow-up, The Next Level, was similarly successful.
A third film had long seemed likely. The Next Level included a mid-credits scene in which a heater repairman, played by Lamorne Morris, visits the home of Spencer Gilpin, played by Alex Wolff. He notices the broken video game console and unintentionally sets the game in motion again. Development on a third installment was paused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but work resumed in 2024.
The official synopsis describes Open World as the "hilarious final installment" of the trilogy. Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan are reunited. The heroes have escaped the dangerous jungles of Jumanji before, but this time the game breaks free of its console and unleashes its chaos into the real world.
There is also a lingering mystery from the previous film. Johnson, who plays the in-game avatar Dr. Xander "Smolder" Bravestone, let slip in 2019 that The Next Level's in-game villain, Jurgen the Brutal, played by Rory McCann, was actually the avatar of another unknown real-world player.
