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Boxoffice Pro - December 2019

The Official Magazine of the National Association of Theatre Owners

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Welcome to the Jungle was a massive<br />

success. What is your state of mind as<br />

you get to work on a sequel and try to<br />

match the impact of that film?<br />

All of us loved working together on<br />

that first one, so there was a real appetite—if<br />

we could figure out an idea that<br />

we loved—to do it again. We were also<br />

all adamant that unless we could come<br />

up with an idea that really excited us,<br />

we weren’t going to do it, because the<br />

first movie holds a special place for us.<br />

And so it was a little daunting, but fairly<br />

quick, actually, as we started to explore<br />

the possibilities. We came to some ideas<br />

about how to do a sequel that got us<br />

all really excited, and then that sort of<br />

becomes, what’s on your mind? It’s not<br />

so much about the last movie it’s, what<br />

can we do now?<br />

So what was the germ that got you<br />

excited the second time around?<br />

As we were finishing up a promotion<br />

of the last movie around the world, I had<br />

a conversation with Dwayne. We were<br />

saying how if we allowed ourselves to<br />

think about it, if there was another one,<br />

what would it look like? And both of us<br />

felt pretty strongly that the fun opportunity,<br />

the big opportunity with our Jumanji<br />

conceit as we’re using it in these movies,<br />

is that you could have the cast playing<br />

different people each time. He identified<br />

with that immediately—that as much as<br />

we had the great fun and pleasure of him<br />

playing a kid in the first movie, it wasn’t<br />

the only way that these could work, and<br />

in fact it could all be new again by shaking<br />

that up. The idea that he and Kevin<br />

would be playing these older guys at a<br />

completely different part of their lives,<br />

experiencing the adventure the way the<br />

kids had, changed everything.<br />

Am I crazy or is there a little bit of a<br />

subtle homage to Twins? DeVito costarred<br />

with Arnold Schwarzenegger in<br />

that film, and here you’re matching him<br />

up with Dwayne Johnson.<br />

Because of how these movies work,<br />

they never have a scene together. But I<br />

can certainly see where you might think<br />

that. And while they’re not actually side<br />

by side in the movie, you really feel that<br />

they’re both playing the same guy. And<br />

Danny’s presence and persona and genius<br />

hopefully continue through the part of<br />

the movie that he’s not in. You feel him<br />

there all the time.<br />

Did you have the two of them work<br />

together off screen to get each other’s<br />

vibes?<br />

Yes, a bit. It was important to us going<br />

in that these guys get to spend a little<br />

bit of time with the people that they are<br />

playing, because unlike the first movie<br />

where you have the stars playing these<br />

kids [whom] you don’t exactly know<br />

apart from their characters, here we have<br />

the characters they’re playing, but also<br />

both Danny DeVito and Danny Glover<br />

are iconic movie actors that we have very<br />

powerful associations with.<br />

Can you talk about the interaction<br />

between Kevin Hart and Danny Glover?<br />

When I went to Kevin and said, here’s<br />

what I’m thinking about for the next one,<br />

he immediately said Danny Glover. The<br />

second he said it, I just said, yes, this is<br />

a guy that I look up to, and he’s one of<br />

my all-time favorites for as long as I can<br />

remember. He made some movies with<br />

my dad, so Danny lives very large in my<br />

movie consciousness. And it was one<br />

of those things where the second Kevin<br />

said [his name], I said there couldn’t be a<br />

more perfect person to do this. Let me try<br />

and get him.<br />

What new sides of Jack Black are we<br />

going to see in this film?<br />

Well, Jack’s doing a whole new thing,<br />

as he says in the trailer. And he is just<br />

brilliant playing this character that Kevin<br />

was playing in the last movie. And in<br />

order to do that, you have to triangulate<br />

a lot of the kid that plays the character<br />

in the real world and our familiarity with<br />

what Kevin did in the last movie. He’s<br />

taken both of those things and expanded<br />

on them and made them his own.<br />

Karen Gillan is part of two big franchises<br />

now. I keep waiting for her to carry a<br />

film on her own. It seems like she’s due.<br />

Well, that’ll happen. The thing is,<br />

when you’re into big franchises like that<br />

and you’re a central part of both, it means<br />

that you’re working on those movies all<br />

the time. Just the logistics of her complicated<br />

schedule make it so that’s what<br />

she’s working on much of the time. But<br />

she has a lot of stuff on the runway.<br />

Truthfully, she has a much bigger piece of<br />

this movie than she did the first, and she<br />

carries a lot on her shoulders for large sections<br />

of this movie. I love working with<br />

her and I love what she’s done here.<br />

Talk a little bit about Dwayne Johnson<br />

and the phenomenon that he is. When<br />

you think of where he came from, the<br />

wrestling career, and now he’s one of<br />

the biggest movie stars in the world.<br />

What is he like to work with on a day-today<br />

basis?<br />

It’s boring to say, but he’s been a total<br />

pleasure. The personality that he presents<br />

in public is completely genuine. He’s this<br />

lovely, incredibly hardworking guy with<br />

a big heart and a big sense of humor. He<br />

wants to make it great, and it’s been a<br />

blast doing these with him.<br />

Welcome to the Jungle was a huge<br />

transition for you. You’d been doing<br />

these low-budget comedies, and now<br />

you’re suddenly working on a huge<br />

scale. Do you enjoy doing action and<br />

working with visual effects?<br />

I love it. It’s something that I didn’t<br />

really anticipate I would love as much as<br />

I do. I’d always wanted to make a movie<br />

that was a big-scale adventure. The visual<br />

effects aspect of it is not what I was most<br />

focused on, but it is something that I’ve<br />

come to really love doing—designing the<br />

action, shooting this action stuff with all<br />

of the amazing people that you work with.<br />

I’m sure Welcome to the Jungle exceeded<br />

your expectations, but it came in<br />

just under a billion dollars. Is that<br />

frustrating for you?<br />

DECEMBER <strong>2019</strong><br />

37

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