GAME CHANGER MATT MAYTUM
In 2017, proved it wasn’t a risky underdog when it held its own against Star Wars. As the videogame adventure returns for The Next Level, stars Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan and Jack Black plus director Jake Kasdan tell Total Film about rewriting the rules, Kevin Hart’s recovery, and facing Skywalker once again.
The high level of expectation and pressure… that is a blessing that I’m happy to accept,” Dwayne Johnson tells Total Film. The artist formerly (and still occasionally) known as The Rock has just stepped out of a tasting meeting for his tequila brand (“I’ve actually been tasting a lot of tequila every day, so my days are pretty damn good!”), and is considering the position that sequel Jumanji: The Next Level finds itself in. “The alternative would have been the last Jumanji that we made – maybe it didn’t fare so well with audiences, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The first film (well, technically second) Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle, was something of an underdog when it arrived in December 2017. It was a sequel rebooting a property that had been dormant for 22 years. Original star, Robin Williams, had sadly died. It belonged (in a sense) to the box-office poisonous subgenre of videogame movies. And if that didn’t seem foolhardy enough, it was going up against Star Wars: The Last Jedi, when most blockbusters were moving their release dates far, far away from the Lucasfilm behemoth.
“Absolutely [it was an underdog],” admits returning director Jake Kasdan. “No question. We were worried about it to the very end, whether it would be possible to get people to go to another movie at the moment [Star Wars] was coming out. It was something we were talking about a lot.” A cynic might have written it off as dead on arrival. “When I first heard that word came down from up high that [Sony Pictures chairman] Tom Rothman had decided that we were going to be a Christmas release, it was a mixed bag for me,” Jack Black tells TF. “Because on the one hand, I was really excited he had so much confidence in the film. But on the other hand, I was like, ‘Why are we going against Star Wars? This seems like a fool’s errand.’ But then my fears were unfounded. Because [Jumanji] was a juggernaut – in the face of, you know, a historical juggernaut.”
Taking $962m at the box office, Welcome To The Jungle was an undisputed hit. Powering its success was not only the chemistry of its gang of videogame avatars (Johnson, Black, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart), but the fact that they were all playing against type, controlled from the outside world by a gang of teenagers. It was a rare fun-for-allthe-family adventure film, which also nailed the videogame elements (lives, NPCs, token collecting).
“We were just fingers crossed,” smiles Johnson. “We believed in what we made, and everyone else was shying away from Star Wars. And we felt, ‘Well, we still believe it’s a Christmas movie, and it has a holiday spirit.’ And not only that, but I love Star Wars. So I was happy to compete with them.”
Black is also keen to point out another resonance in the metaphorical battle. “In a weird way, it was father versus son, because it was Jake Kasdan versus his father, Lawrence Kasdan. Lawrence had returned [to Star Wars] to not direct, but I think he did a pass on the draft, or was involved in some way. I couldn’t believe that they were going head-to-head. It was very much like a Star Wars story where Luke has to face Darth Vader. They tried every trick in the book to destroy him. They squirted blue milk out of their teats and everything. But we prevailed.”
After a successful new instalment, a sequel (or technically threequel) seemed
‘Jumanji was a juggernaut – in the face of, you know, a historical juggernaut’ Jack Black
inevitable. But instead of just chucking another coin in the slot and continuing with an identikit sequel, Kasdan and co decided to switch things up. “This particular idea, how we would shake up whatever everyone’s playing, was, for me, the part that made it exciting,” says Kasdan, talking to TF while he’s deep in post-production and wrangling the film’s extensive VFX demands. “It was the exciting genesis moment.”
Continue…?
Welcome To The Jungle saw high-schooler Spencer (Alex Wolff) enter the Jumanji videogame world as Doctor Smolder Bravestone (Johnson); mean girl Bethany (Madison Iseman) was playing as Professor Shelly Oberon (Black); sports jock Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain) ended up in the body of Mouse Finbar (Hart); and studious Martha (Morgan Turner) became the Lara Croft-esque Ruby Roundhouse (Gillan). With everyone uncomfortable in their avatar, bodyswap hilarity was added to the jewelhunting adventure.
In The Next Level, only Martha plays as the same character. “I quickly realised that where she was able to blend into the background of the last film until she needed to beat people up, now she has to take control of the whole group,” says Gillan of playing Martha/Ruby again. “She’s more freaked out that she’s back in the game, but she knows how to use this avatar to her advantage. And she feels far more comfortable. But she’s still pretty annoyed about the outfit!”
So while Gillan provides the most direct link to the last film, it’s all change elsewhere. The plot is set in motion when Spencer disappears into the game, and his friends investigate. Only this time, a couple of eccentric old cranks – Spencer’s grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito) and his pal Milo (Danny Glover) – get sucked into the game along with Martha and Fridge. (Where Bethany fits in is a mystery.) Kevin Hart is channelling Danny Glover, and Jack Black is controlled by Fridge.
Black stole the show last time, getting in touch with his inner teen girl – so how does Fridge compare? “It was a challenge in the same way that playing Bethany was, because you don’t want to just fall into the traps of stereotypes,” considers Black. “You want to make it real and fresh and fun. And while I was playing Bethany, I was worried, ‘Oh, will women be mad at me for playing a stereotypical high school popular girl? I don’t know.’ Of course, I had the same kind of fears
when I was playing Ser’Darius because I was like, ‘Oh, man, I could get in trouble if I don’t play this character real.’ But that’s kind of the fun and excitement of the challenge as well, and I really just threw myself into the deep end.”
But the must-see transformation of the new film is set to be Dwayne Johnson’s, who’s channelling Danny DeVito. Yep, the 6ft 5in former wrestler is playing a character controlled by the 4ft 10in septuagenarian. “It was the most surreal and wildest fucking thing to channel Danny DeVito,” exclaims Johnson, roaring with laughter. “When we decided to take a crack at a sequel, we sat around the table, and thought, ‘Well, one of the greatest joys of Jumanji is this idea that we have created these videogame avatars that, really, anyone can become.’ We could bring in any actor. So I told Jake, our director, ‘What if we took the idea of Cocoon with older people, and we apply that here?’ And from there, the ideas just really started coming out.”
Johnson says Alan Arkin was one of the first people in the mix, before the eureka moment. “All of a sudden, Jake Kasdan said, ‘What about Danny DeVito?’” continues Johnson. “And I said, ‘I’m in 100 per cent.’ So then I spent time with Danny, and got to know him, and his innuendoes, and how he is. He has a certain speech. And there’s some roughness to him.”
Having action man Johnson playing against type was one of Welcome To The Jungle’s great pleasures, and The Next Level is taking that to… you get the idea. “I feel there’s never been anyone exactly like him,” beams Kasdan. “[No action hero] who’s come before him has the genuine comedy chops that DJ does. A big part of our idea is that somebody who looks like that, and has that persona, might be anything inside.”
“I know he’s played against his type before, but it was just like nothing I’ve ever seen from him,” adds Gillan. “It’s so insane that it’s coming out of the body of The Rock. It’s insane. He does all of the Danny voices, and he’s screwing up his face, and he’s just completely bewildered by the whole situation that he’s in. It’s quite a sight to behold.” Of all the cast, Gillan is the one with experience of characters regenerating. “It was something that I was familiar with in Doctor Who, and I was also aware that Doctor Who is the longest-running sci-fi show in the world, and the reason for that longevity is the genius of the character being able to regenerate and to bring in a new actor, and to bring life into the series again,” she says. “When I looked at Jumanji, I was like, ‘This could be similar in a lot of ways,’ in just being able to reinvigorate, regularly.”
Expansion pack
Of course, it wouldn’t be a blockbuster sequel without leaps upwards in scale and scope, and in The Next Level, the world is expanding: as well as the jungle, the gang will find themselves in the vastness of the desert, and at the top of snow-capped mountains. “I was very focused on figuring out ways to expand the action and the scale of what we were doing without falling into the trap that I think sometimes sequels can fall into, where it’s nothing but ‘more’,” says Kasdan. “It’s more of everything. For me, that isn’t enough when I see the sequel to a movie that I’ve liked. So we were looking for ways to blow it out.” A couple of the central action set-pieces have been worked on for more than a year.
‘It was the most surreal and wildest thing to channel Danny DeVito’ Dwayne Johnson
“The action is bigger, the action is more intense,” explains Johnson. “We’ve set up multiple Jumanji universes.” But despite the game setting, much of the filming was done in real locations, from Canada to Hawaii to New Mexico. “We went to the highest mountaintops in Calgary, Alberta in Canada where it was freezing, and snow was everywhere,” says Johnson. “We dealt with hailstorms and windstorms, but it makes for a spectacular movie. And then we went to the middle of the desert. We were in the sand dunes. And then we went back to the jungles.”
“Each location was its own particular type of hell – and heaven,” adds Black. “It was beautiful to go up to the snowy tundra of Canada and get those incredible mountain peaks. But my God, it was cold. I thought Dwayne’s nipples were going to break off. They were like sharp icicles. His costume – it’s not a very warm costume. When it came to the snow look, he could have had a nice puffer jacket. But he was like, ‘We’ve got to keep the rippling muscles in full view at all times.’ The dunes were fucking hot but glorious. You really can’t overstate how important a location is. It creates the world.”
Gillan concurs. “It just felt like the elements were as extreme as you would imagine it would be in a game. But it was also incredible, because you had this authentic feel. It could have gone the route of CGI or videogame graphics. But actually they went for real and authentic.” Stepping up in the stunts, Gillan “steals the movie in terms of the action” according to Johnson, taking the dance-fighting up a few notches from the last time we saw her dispatch a bunch of goons to the strains of Big Mountain’s ‘Baby, I Love Your Way’. “It’s so much better,” laughs Gillan. “It’s so cool. There are new weapons involved… It’s a lot more vicious now. There’s less dancing. It’s more vicious fighting.”
Gillan also says that for an actioncomedy, they’re really ramping up the action side of the equation. “And actually, oh my God, we had the stunt team from Mission: Impossible,” she exclaims. “We’re at Tom Cruise level here. They wanted me to do as much of my own stuff as possible, which I was definitely up for, but let me tell you:
I was screaming at this point. Being thrown off a bridge – I’m never not going to scream at that. It was truly terrifying.”
And expanding the gang is a mysterious new avatar played by superstar-on-the-rise Awkwafina, who has gone from Crazy Rich Asians to The Farewell to the MCU (in the upcoming
Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings). Character details are being kept under wraps for now, but according to Johnson, she “completely crushes her role”. Gillan welcomed the additional female presence this time. “She is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life, and it’s so nice to have another girlfriend,” whoops Gillan. “I was surrounded by boys who were fantastic but sometimes you need a girl.”
Hart to Hart
One crucial member of the gang hasn’t been available for promo duties, and with good reason. On 1 September, Kevin Hart was a passenger in a car accident that resulted in “major back injuries” for himself and the driver. The accident quickly became headline news, but according to his pals, Hart is doing well and recovering at home. “I went over to his house, and he’s doing really well,” says Black. “I was really relieved to see that he was up and running. He’s doing really aggressive physical therapy, and his range of motion looks great, and his attitude is super-positive. He’s really focused, and in good spirits. And funny as hell. That was the main thing I was looking for. It was like, ‘How’s his sense of humour?’ And he was killing me. The dude’s a force of nature. He’s going to be back to 100 per cent in no time.”
“I know that he’s eager to be ready to get back to work as soon as he can,” adds Gillan. “The man loves working more than anyone I’ve ever met in my life.” Anyone who follows Johnson and Hart on social media, will know that the two have had a good-natured rivalry since they first worked together in 2016’s Central Intelligence (Hart also cameoed in this summer’s Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw). “Kevin’s the kind of guy who takes things like this not only very seriously, but also – without getting too over-intellectualised – he looks at this as really an opportunity to get better,” says Johnson. “He’s on the mend, and he’s going to be back, and he’s excited about the movie. I saw the movie the other night for the first time with an audience. I called him. He was beaming, because I was able to give him a lot of good news. I told him they loved me in the movie, and they think that he fucking sucks. So, it was perfect!” Johnson erupts into a Richter-scale laugh; the accident hasn’t diminished his affectionate ribbing of his co-star. “Well, look, that was the first thing I said to him when I got him on the phone [after the accident]. I said, ‘Jesus Christ, you will do anything for attention!’”
All round, spirits are high as The Next Level once again gears up to go against Star Wars (The Rise Of Skywalker opens less than a week after J:TNL). So, should it be the guys with the lightsabers who are running scared this time? “One thousand per cent no,” laughs Johnson. “We’ve proven that we’re just two completely separate entities, and audiences come out for both. There’s a lot of love. And not only that, but what a great time for audiences. I’m such a fan of movies, and you are too, and everyone reading Total Film magazine. What a great Christmas for movies.”
‘Awkwafina is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met in my life’ Karen Gillan
“I think one of the reasons Jumanji was also so successful was that you needed almost like an antidote – not an ‘antidote’, but like a counter to Star Wars at the box office last time,” says Gillan. “Something where you can just go with your family and all generations are laughing at the same jokes.”
Black has a more inspired analogy for returning to face Star Wars again. “Well, we are the Rebel Alliance,” he asserts. “And we shan’t be intimidated.”
Given the scope for switching up avatars, there’s presumably plenty of mileage for further Jumanji adventures. “I can’t think of anyone I’d want to channel right off the bat,” considers Black. “I always thought we should be called Jumanji Strikes Back if we’re going up against another Star Wars. I would like to go into space.”
Gillan has a cool idea for a playerswap for Ruby Roundhouse in a possible future instalment. “I think it would be really fun to play a really chauvinistic man,” she grins. “They get trapped in my body, and understand what it’s like to feel like a girl, and what it feels like to be objectified, and then suddenly have a whole epiphany about [their] behaviour.”
And after channelling a teenage nerd and a cantankerous OAP, Johnson has a similar flip in mind for a future instalment. “I’ve been thinking about that… My mind may change. But I think a female has to embody Dr. Smolder Bravestone,” he says, bellowing another enormous laugh. “The oestrogen will be wonderfully mixed with the testosterone. And we’ll see what happens.” Sounds like as good a reason as any to crack open the tequila.
JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL OPENS ON 13 DECEMBER.