Now that Sony
has officially set a date for the
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle sequel, director Jake Kasdan and his team have a ton of work to do to ensure it's ready on time. With a little over a year until the anticipated sequel to 2017's surprise box office hit opens in theaters, it doesn't leave much wiggle room. In fact, speaking to Collider during the 44th Saturn Awards, Kasdan revealed the studio is aiming to begin filming in early 2019.
“The idea is to make the movie in the beginning of the year if we can get it all worked out,” Kasdan said.
As far as filming locations are concerned, it's still early but Kasdan was open to returning to Hawaii where
Welcome to the Jungle was filmed.
"We have not started figuring out the locations yet. Hawaii was a big part of [Welcome to the Jungle] and we love Hawaii, it would be great to go back there,” he said.
“We’ll see.”
The first step, of course, is to get a script ironed out. Thankfully, they are making good progress on it.
"I think we're getting very close to cracking it," Kasdan revealed, referring to the difficulty in creating a worthy follow-up to the sequel/reboot.
"It's a complicated little puzzle, but I think we got some good stuff cooking."
Kasdan added that the key to cracking the next
Jumanji is the ability to retain the series' heart and emotional center while moving forward in a way that feels organic following
Welcome to the Jungle 's ending. He explained:
“It’s a big part of what we’ve all loved about that story and that movie was that it was this big fantasy that has kind of like a real kind of like strong, emotional center to it, and I do think that’s a big part of what DJ responded to about it in the first place, and I know it’s a big part of what I loved about it,” Kasdan said. “So part of the challenge of figuring out how it continues is to keep that alive in ways that feel earned and, you know, like a true continuation of the story.”
Even with confidence in the story early on, Kasdan admitted he is feeling some pressure with the looming release date locked in and not having finalized the script yet.
“The short answer is, yes, I do feel that pressure," he said, laughing.
Check out Collider's full interview with Kasdan below.
The still-untitled
Jumanji 3 is slated for a December 13, 2019, theatrical release. Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, and Jack Black are all set to return.