Dwayne Johnson leads Jumanji open-world back into the real world, and the new trailer finally pays off the mid-credits tease from Jumanji: The Next Level. The footage pushes the franchise from game-space chaos into a live-action crossover that has been waiting almost seven years to surface in theaters.
Jumanji: Open World
Jumanji: Open World is the fourth entry in Sony’s film series based on Chris Van Allsburg’s Jumanji picture book, and it is the third Jumanji film since the 2017 soft reboot with Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. If Zathura: A Space Adventure stays in the count, it becomes the fifth movie in the broader Extended Van Allsburg Universe, a label that only matters because this sequel machine now has enough history to make its own rules.
Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black are back, with Jake Kasdan returning as co-writer and director alongside Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg. Alex Wolff, Morgan Turner, Ser'Darius Blain, and Madison Iseman also return as the youngsters who keep getting sucked into the game, which keeps the film anchored to the same human frame even as the story pushes the animals and avatars into the real world.
Jumanji: The Next Level
The trailer’s real hook is simple: it cashes the check written by the 2019 mid-credits scene in Jumanji: The Next Level. That setup gave the series a clean escalation path, and this new footage shows the franchise using it rather than treating it like a throwaway tease.
The complication is the one the trailer quietly acknowledges. Johnson’s run inside Jumanji has delivered, but his recent turns outside it have not hit the same level, so Open World is carrying more than nostalgia; it has to make the crossover feel earned while still giving Sony a holiday release with a built-in audience. That is a different job than simply repeating the last movie’s formula.
December 25, 2026
Jumanji: Open World opens in theaters on December 25, 2026, which gives the film a long runway after this first look. The practical question now is how far the real-world crossover goes once the game’s creatures and human avatars are no longer trapped on the other side of the screen.
