Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has shared a brand-new poster for his next movie, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, featuring himself alongside his humans costars (and one not-so-human one). The film has been in development since 2012 and was originally described as being a reboot of the Jumanji movie property, which launched with the Robin Williams-headlined Jumanji in 1995. In truth, however, Welcome to the Jungle both maintains loose continuity with the '90s Jumanji film and further strays away from the original 1981 illustrated children's book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg (who also wrote the screen story for the 1995 Jumanji film),

Welcome to the Jungle takes place in the present-day (circa 2017 or so), with the original Jumanji board game having been adapted into a video game at some point over the twenty-plus years that have passed between Jumanji films. It turns out that the video game version of Jumanji is as enchanted and magical as its predecessor, as four unsuspecting teenagers find out when they decide to play the video game and are sucked into its world, forced to "play" as their in-game avatars in the process.

Related: Jack Black is Responsible For Jumanji (2017)'s Title

Those in-game characters include Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Johnson), Professor Shelly Oberon (Jack Black), Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan), and Franklin "Moose" Finbar (Kevin Hart). You can get a glimpse of all four characters as they wade through alligator (crocodile?) infested waters in the new Welcome to the Jungle poster shared by Johnson through his Twitter account (see below).

Exclusive.
Just stopping thru to deliver some early CHRISTMAS joy.

The new @jumanjimovie poster.

That is all.

Love, Dwanta Clause pic.twitter.com/2lEZ4Pw3cz— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) September 21, 2017

Welcome to the Jungle marks a change of pace for director Jake Kasdan and finds the filmmaker working in more family-friendly adventure territory after having specialized in R-Rated raunchy comedies for much of the past decade (see Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Bad Teacher, Sex Tape). Johnson, meanwhile, is coming off this past May's under-performing R-rated action/comedy reboot Baywatch, setting the stage for the new Jumanji movie to possibly serve as a rebound for the A-lister and draw in a sizable family crowd, during the impending winter holiday season.

While nostalgia for the '90s Jumanji film adaptation will no doubt help to drive audiences to check out Welcome to the Jungle in theaters, the December launch date is arguably both a blessing and potential obstacle for the Johnson-led vehicle. Movies released around the winter holidays tend to have better legs in general, but that also means the new Jumanji will be facing some tough competition from the likes of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and the Hugh Jackman musical The Greatest Showman, among other much buzzed-about films. That said, the combination of star-power and brand recognition - coupled with what sounds like a creative video game-based premise - will certainly give Welcome to the Jungle a proper fighting chance at the box office.

NEXT: Watch the New Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Trailer

Source: Dwayne Johnson

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