Our heroes were stuck at the most difficult part of the game: the origami level.

JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

EXT. NOT FRANCE - 1996

DAD

Look son! Here's a board game I found on a beach somewhere. And here's some seaweed, cigarette butts, and broken beer bottles! I sure do love sharing my beach treasures.

SON

Talk to the hand, Dad. Board games are whack! I'd rather play video games, they're da bomb!

JUMANJI

Well, it just so happens that I can magically turn into what's cool in any given time period! Except in the last movie where I didn't do anything like that, or later in this movie where I also don't do anything like that.

JUMANJI turns into a clunky, 90's video game cartridge and SUCKS the SON into the game.

INT. BLANDSVILLE HIGH SCHOOL - 20 YEARS LATER

Four teenagers get sent to DETENTION for being too GENERIC.

ALEX WOLFF

Ok, so we've got a nerd, a jock, a popular girl, and a girl who doesn't give a shit, and we're all thrown in detention. Is this screenwriting just a TAD lazy?

SER'DARIUS BLAIN

We should start a club. The... Lunch Club. Wait, that doesn't sound right.

ALEX WOLFF

Hey, let's play this video game I found in the school's basement! It kinda looks like it belongs to that kid that disappeared 20 years ago. Best to never mention it again or wonder how it got here. Anyone down?

MADISON ISEMAN

Sure, we've known each other for all of five minutes. Despite being blonde and vapid, I'll pick the professor avatar instead of the awesomely-named "Ruby Roundhouse."

MORGAN TURNER

Ok, fine! I don't want to play, but I guess I will anyway. Hooray for peer pressure!

They PLAY and get SUCKED into the game.

EXT. JUMANJI

They fall from the sky into a JUNGLE, and realize they have turned into their AVATARS!

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Holy shit! A minute ago I was a anxious nerd, and now I'm a super-buff stud!

DWAYNE'S EYEBROW

You arch me one more time and I swear I'm crawling off your face and getting a new agent.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Wait, are we actually making a movie where actors can have fun with the idea of playing characters that go against their type?

KAREN GILLAN

Well, you and Jack Black can. Unless "being blue and robotic" is a type, then I guess me too.

KEVIN HART

Yeah, that sounds like a lot of work, so I'm just going to play the same character I always play. If it doesn't seem to match up with the character Ser'Darius was playing, that's because it doesn't.

JACK BLACK

OMGOMGOMG I've turned into a fat, middle-aged man and I've gone 5 minutes without instagramming! Somebody kill me!

Distracted, JACK is devoured by a HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPO, but RESPAWNS, falling out of the sky again. A JEEP appears, driven by RHYS DARBY.

JACK BLACK

Wait, is that an Uber? WHO STILL HAS A PHONE?

RHYS DARBY

Greetings, explorers!

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Huh. I thought this was a terrifying jungle, but if it's got jeeps and Australians, I guess it can't be that bad.

RHYS DARBY

...Greetings, explorers!

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Ohh, my bad. You're from New Zealand, aren't you?

RHYS DARBY

My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

O...kay. Can you tell us why we're here?

RHYS DARBY

To save Jumanji, of course! Let me show you.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Ooh, a cutscene! Presumably there are going to be more of these later as we go through the game?

RHYS DARBY

Nope, just this one time! Now, listen carefully to the intricate backstory.

(pause)

An evil guy stole a jewel from the big jaguar statue and took control of Jumanji. Retrieve the jewel, put it back in the statue, and you win. Got all that? Great.

KEVIN HART

Evil guy? What evil guy?

RHYS DARBY

(ominously)

Russel Van Pelt.

KAREN GILLAN

Van Pelt? That hunter from the original movie that represented the underlying daddy issues of the main character?

RHYS DARBY

Erm, yes, but this time, he's just an Italian guy with a... British accent? Kinda?

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Well, sounds like our first mission is to locate the jewel! I wonder where it-

RHYS DARBY

(hands them the jewel)

Here you go!

(fucks off)

JACK BLACK

He is like, SO not getting a five-star review.

EXT. VALLEY

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Hey guys, look! If I touch my bulging pecs -

(flexes into camera)

I can see that my strengths are speed, climbing, and super-strength. Weaknesses: none.

(smolders into camera)

Find someone who loves you the way my management team loves me.

KEVIN HART

My skills are "having a backpack." What is this shit, Dora the Explorer?

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Well, your skill is actually using your backpack to hold weapons that belong to me. You're more like a pack mule.

KEVIN HART

Fuck this game.

JACK BLACK

You guys, my skill of "being the only one who can read maps" tells me that the hippo was the first level of the game, and we've totally come to the second level now.

KAREN GILLAN

Oh no! It must be something super exotic that would only be found in the depths of the jungle!

A MOTORCYCLE GANG appears, and chases them through the trees. KAREN gets shot by one of them, disappears into a cloud of dust, and RESPAWNS.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

This explains the tattoos we each have! Each line represents a life. Kevin and I still have three, but Karen and Jack now have fewer lives.

JACK BLACK

I like, totes approve. I'm pretty sure I've seen similar tattoo designs on Pinterest. Oooh, can we all get matching infinity signs after?

While journeying to the next LEVEL, KEVIN and DWAYNE argue about TEENAGE BULLSHIT, and KEVIN pushes DWAYNE off a CLIFF. Then...

INT. BAZAAR

...KEVIN eats a piece of cake and EXPLODES for no reason at all.

KAREN GILLAN

Shouldn't we be losing our lives in some fun, adventure-y type way, instead of in a contrived attempt to artificially raise the stakes later in the movie?

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Well, since you said it, this level is a black mamba! Who here can handle a big, black snake?

KAREN AND JACK

(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

KEVIN HART

Bitch, I do that every day!

KEVIN defeats the snake with the power of ZOOLOGY. Unfortunately, the CAKESPLOSION has drawn the attention of some GOONS, led by THAT GUY WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE IS BRITISH.

BOBBY CARNAVALE

Aiy, how ya doin'? You guys try this pastrami? It was only two dollahs COUGH AHEM I mean, right-o, chaps! We're going to have ourselves a proper fight, aren't we? I say, put 'em up!

Since DWAYNE has NO WEAKNESSES, he easily defeats the GOONS, but the gang is eventually cornered by BOBBY, who has ANIMAL POWERS OR SOME SHIT. Fortunately, NICK JONAS appears and rescues them.

JACK BLACK

It's About Time!

KAREN GILLAN

Yeah, could you have taken A Little Bit Longer?

NICK JONAS

Hey, for your information, my special skill involves "loving metal bands," which, you know, gives the marketing team a reason to use that Guns N' Roses song in the trailers, and ALSO having a better solo career than my brother, who split up our band to pursue a solo career.

(pause)

Oh, and I can fly stuff. Except not right now, because I'm too scared.

JACK BLACK

And yet my Hottie Alarm ™ has never been louder.

EXT. NICK JONAS' SWEET JUNGLE PAD

NICK JONAS

Pretty sweet place, right? It was built by Robin Williams, whoever that is.

KAREN GILLAN

Okay, since you insisted on bringing up Robin Williams, the jungle he got stuck in seemed like a dangerous, inescapable nightmare, filled with huge fucking mutant insects and man-eating plants and stuff. This movie’s jungle is apparently in Hawaii with a cool Tiki Hut AirBnB where you can live on the run for 20 years and still somehow look like a fucking Jonas Brother!

NICK JONAS

(winks at camera)

...Wait, I'm sorry, did you say "20 years"?

KAREN GILLAN

Oops.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Nice one, Karen. Now he's scared AND having an existential crisis.

NICK JONAS

Of course I am! I disappeared from the real world, and I've been playing a videogame for the last 20 years! This is literally my parents' worst nightmare!

KEVIN HART

Sooooo, is this a bad time to tell you Metallica never rebounded after The Black Album?

NICK JONAS

(goes catatonic)

EXT. WAREHOUSE

The gang arrives at the next JUAMNJI challenge, a WAREHOUSE full of NORMAL VEHICLES guarded by REGULAR DUDES.

KAREN GILLAN

Another blown opportunity to use the setting in any kind of interesting way. I mean, what is this, GTA San Jumanji?

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Hey, Negative Nancy, why don't you make yourself useful and distract those guards while we sneak in to steal the helicopter?

KAREN flirts awkwardly with the guards, before overpowering them with her special skill: DANCE FIGHTING.

KAREN GILLAN

It's really just "fighting while listening to Peter Frampton," but hey, it works.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Now come on, Nick, fly this helicopter out of here!

NICK JONAS

I'm too scared. I just can't do it, man.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Yes, you can.

NICK JONAS

You're right! Let's fly this helicopter out of here!

With the combined power of KARATE and FRIENDSHIP FOR EVERYONE, the gang escapes the WAREHOUSE and heads to the FINAL LEVEL.

EXT. JAGUAR STATUE

Unfortunately, BOBBY is there waiting for them.

BOBBY CANNAVALE

I say, old bean. Hand over the gem like a good lad, and I shan't set my pack of jaguars upon thee!

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Thee? You're slipping, Bobby.

BOBBY CANNAVALE

OK, FUGGHEDABOUDIT! Let's rumble, you mooks!

DWAYNE steals a MOTORCYCLE and sets off towards the summit.

KEVIN HART

Oh, and what are we supposed to do?

KAREN GILLAN

What we've been doing most of the movie, I guess: run interference for Dwayne until he bruteforces his way through the problem.

THE ROCK puts the ROCK back in the ROCK. BOBBY dissolves into a PILE OF RATS, which scutter back to the New York sewers. RHYS DARBY reappears.

RHYS DARBY

Congratulations, explorers! Allow me to shake all your hands one by one, while I awkwardly say your full names again.

KEVIN HART

I'm gonna be a little bit taller, I'm gonna be a baller...

(fades away)

JACK BLACK

I am going to have SO many unread notifications.

(fades away)

KAREN GILLAN

My turn, I guess.

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Karen, wait. Now that Jumanji is apparently a jungle paradise... what if we stay here forever?

KAREN GILLAN

I know we're not the most popular kids in school, but do you realize how incredibly selfish that would be? You don't want to see your family ever again just because you like having avatar biceps bigger than your real torso? You want your mom and dad to end up like Nick Jonas's?

DWAYNE JOHNSON

Parents to international superstars?

KAREN GILLAN

Har har. Now come on. Maybe I'll date you when we get back to the real world.

(fades away)

DWAYNE JOHNSON

(sadly)

Goodbye, Jumanji. Goodbye, eyebrow. Muscles, I think I'll miss you most of all.

(fades away)

DWAYNE'S EYEBROW

Oh, well fuck you too, buddy.

INT. BLANDSVILLE HIGH SCHOOL

The KIDS reappear, and realize NO TIME HAS PASSED, which is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what happens when you play video games. On the way home, they run into COLIN HANKS, the SON from the beginning of the movie. He has GROWN UP, but only physically.

COLIN HANKS

It's so totally rad to see you guys. Madison, you especially. I've been thinking about you for years -

ALEX WOLFF

Ohhh no.

COLIN HANKS

- imagining what I was going to say to you in this moment over and over -

SER'DARIUS BLAIN

If this movie ends with Colin Hanks banging a teenager, I swear to God...

COLIN HANKS

- and I wanted to tell you that I named my daughter after you.

(actual line)

So stoked!

MADISON ISEMAN

Ohmygosh, that is so sweet. Alex, Ser'Darius, you guys are disgusting.

SER'DARIUS BLAIN

Everyone was thinking it.

MORGAN TURNER

What should we do about the game?

ALEX WOLFF

Smash it to make sure no one ever finds it?

SER'DARIUS BLAIN

That's not very sequel-worthy, brah.

ALEX WOLFF

Oh, please. The game is magic, and/or does whatever the movie needs it to do. I'm sure it'll just turn up again in the sequel, and morph into a smartphone or an "Alexa" or something.

JUMANJI

For fucks sake, don't give me any ideas.

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