After starring in 2010’s Gulliver’s Travels and in 2015’s Goosebumps, Jack Black is completing the kids-books-turned-into-movies trifecta by joining Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart for the latest film adaptation of Chris van Allsburg’s award-winning book Jumanji. That’s a pretty excellent dream team if you ask us, especially given Johnson’s proclivity for movies based on kids books himself. The Verge shared the news of the casting, which the Rock himself confirmed following rumors on Variety. Ever the king of social media, the Rock confirmed Black’s casting via his Instagram feed on Wednesday.
Accompanying the photo of Black on top of a picture of the Rock holding the book, the actor-producer was proud to have Black in the cast, but was Hollywood cryptic about who Black might be playing.
World loves Jack Black and so do I. Been a big fan of his work over the years. A brilliant actor who I’m confident will turn in a performance of a lifetime for JUMANJI. (when we reveal his character you’ll understand;).
He also called himself, Hart, and Black “The Jumanji Breakfast Club,” which is a fairly apt description, Black of course representing the Ally Sheedy of the group.
The Rock also alluded to two major roles still needing to be cast–“One bad ass girl. One semi-sorta bad ass dude.”
The original Jumanji film was released in 1995 and starred the late Robin Williams. The Rock has gone on record recently in another Instagram post
about whether the remake/reboot would touch on Williams’ character of Alan Parrish, saying the movie would pay tribute in an “earnest and cool way,” and later said he had an idea about what to do and “I think his family will be proud.”
Tell us what you think of Jack Black joining the Jumanji reboot in the comments below!
Let’s relive Jack Black’s epic appearance in our 90s-style movie music video, “Bumps Gonna Goose Ya.”
Image: Columbia Pictures
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. Follow him on Twitter!
