Jumanji Remake Pays Tribute to Robin Williams Says the Rock

Last month, Dwayne Johnson revealed that production will begin this fall on Sony Pictures’ Jumanji remake, which he is set to both star in and produce. The actor is possibly reuniting with his Central Intelligence co-star Kevin Hart, and while no other cast members have been announced quite yet, that will change soon. The Rock took to his Instagram page once again today, revealing a new photo of the actor reading the original Jumanji book by Chris Van Allsburg. He goes onto reveal new details about this project, and how he plans to honor original Jumanji star, the late Robin Williams.

In a lengthy post on Instagram, Dwayne Johnson explains that he recently met with director Jake Kasdan and producer Matt Tolmach to work on the Jumanji remake. We still don’t know anything about who Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart are playing yet, but the story follows a 12-year-old boy trapped in a board game back in 1969 who is released 45 years later. The actor shared a touching story about the first time he met Robin Williams, who passed away in August 2014, while revealing that he plans to honor the late actor’s original character, Alan Parrish, in this reboot. Here’s what The Rock had to say.

“And the #JUMANJI magic begins. Excellent meeting with our director Jake Kasdan, producer Matt Tolmach, and our @SevenBucksProd team to work on our new re-imagining of this amazing story. I felt like in order to craft something cool we should begin where it all started. Award winning writer Chris Van Allsburg‘s source material of Jumanji. Chris also wrote The Polar Express (later adapted by Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks) and has a very special & magical way of storytelling. I’m feelin’ good and confident stepping into these shoes as a producer as well as actor to bring you something great that you and your entire fam can enjoy. An important thing that I want to be honest and bring up is Robin Williams. The love and respect I have for this man is boundless. You have my word, we will honor his name and the character of “Alan Parrish” will stand alone and be forever immortalized in the world of Jumanji in an earnest and cool way. I have an idea of what to do and I think his family will be proud. I also think Robin is somewhere lookin’ down and laughing, remembering the first time we met backstage and I (for the first time ever) was a star struck bumbling idiot that couldn’t even get my words out. Idiot. He literally calmed me down w/ that smile and laugh. But that’s for another fun story down the road. We got a great team assembled already over at our home base of SONY and now we build from here. Here’s another fun part… in the original movie there were three big roles. In our new story there’s now FIVE. Been so damn cool to see all my actor buddies push their projects aside so hopefully they can come play in our world. Should have cool casting announcements this week. Will keep you posted.”

Dwayne Johnson was originally going to shoot Rampage this fall, after Baywatch and Fast & Furious 8, but that video game adaptation was pushed into 2017, giving the actor an opening in his schedule to shoot Jumanji this fall. The actor is also attached to star in San Andreas 2 and a remake of Big Trouble in Little China, but it isn’t known when those projects will move forward. Sony Pictures has already set a July 28, 2017 release, which is currently the only movie slated to open on that date. It will debut a week after Christopher Nolan‘s Dunkirk, EuropaCorp’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and 20th Century Fox’s The Story of Ferdinand.

Jake Kasdan, best known for comedies like Sex Tape, Bad Teacher and Walk Hard, is directing Jumanji from a script by Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner, who rewrote an early draft by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Matt Tolmach is producing alongside William Teitler, with Ted Field, Mike Weber and author Chris Van Allsburg executive producing. Take a look at Dwayne Johnson‘s Instagram photo, and stay tuned for more on Jumanji.