Jack Black and Dwayne Johnson’s $962 Million Smash Sequel Hits Netflix
Jack Black and Dwayne Johnson’s $962 million smash Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle swings onto Netflix in April, a 2017 action-comedy that reboots the 1995 classic for the modern era.
Alright, here’s one for the nostalgia crowd and anyone who enjoys watching Dwayne Johnson get chased through CGI jungles: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (yes, the Jack Black-Dwayne Johnson-Kevin Hart-Karen Gillan one) is coming to Netflix next month. If you somehow missed this gigantic hit when it was everywhere in 2017, now's your chance to see what all the fuss was about—without shelling out for another streaming service.
What’s Coming and When?
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle drops on Netflix starting Sunday, April 5, 2026. Seems like a safe bet for background noise, family movie night, or just reliving the era when Hollywood decided to reboot every '90s movie with The Rock.
New Game, Familiar Rules
To jog your memory: this isn’t exactly a straight-up sequel to the 1995 Robin Williams classic. Instead, the movie flips the premise—this time, four modern-day teenagers get themselves detention, stumble across the ancient, mystical Jumanji... in the form of a retro video game cartridge. It’s 1996, a kid named Alex finds the game on a beach (not suspicious at all), pops it into his console, and promptly vanishes. Cut to 2017: that same cartridge ends up in a high school basement where the teens (played by Alex Wolff, Ser'Darius Blain, Morgan Turner, and Madison Iseman) end up sucked into the game, literally, and become their chosen avatars (played by Johnson, Black, Gillan, and Hart).
'To get out alive, they have to return a magical jewel to its proper place and break the curse. You get video game logic, action set-pieces, and a lot of Jack Black pretending he’s a teenage girl. Make of that what you will.'
Stars, Stats, and the Money
- Directed by: Jake Kasdan
- Written by: Chris McKenna
- Main cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Alex Wolff, Ser'Darius Blain, Morgan Turner, Madison Iseman, Nick Jonas
- Original release: December 20, 2017
- Box office haul: Just shy of $1 billion worldwide (around $962.5 million—yes, that’s with a “m”, not a typo)
- Critical response: 77% on Rotten Tomatoes with an even higher 87% audience score (“Popcornmeter” whatever that means)
- Follow-up: The sequel, Jumanji: The Next Level, came out in 2019
A Bit of Backstory
For anyone interested in how we got here: Sony actually spent years toying with the idea of a Jumanji sequel after the 1995 movie exploded. There were multiple versions in development, including one where they supposedly approached Robin Williams to return as Alan Parrish. According to reports, he wasn’t interested, and eventually the whole thing got scrapped in favor of another 'kids sucked into a magical board game' story, Zathura: A Space Adventure. (If you blinked in 2005, you probably missed that one.)
Fast-forward, and Hollywood finally figured out the formula—make it a video game, throw in a few major stars, and make Jack Black play a selfie-obsessed teenager. The result was the blockbuster you’re about to see on Netflix.
So if you missed Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle the first time—or just want to relive Dwayne Johnson's eyebrow acting in high-def—it’ll be just a click away this April.