The Rock Promises Jumanji Remake Will Honor Robin Williams

Last month, after little speculation, The Rock confirmed his involvement with the upcoming Jumanji Remake. With the announcement of the remake and The Rock’s attachment’s to the film, some fans of the original were worried about the integrity of Robin Williams character, Alan Parrish. The Rock, being the cool person that he is, took to his Instagram to relieve fans of their worries. “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” Rock said shortly before giving fans his word that the film will “honor his name and the character of “Alan Parrish” will stand alone and be forever immortalized”.

The Rock also teased some details for the movie. He says that instead of the original three integral characters, this remake will have five and that some of his “actor buddies” will be making an appearance. There were rumors of Kevin Hart being attached to the film as well, so maybe he’ll be one of those buddies making an appearance. Maybe Hart will take on the role of Officer Carl Bentley, originally played by David Alan Grier.

Check The Rock’s full statement below and stick around for the official casting later on this week.

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. #TheMagicBegins #JustPressStart #JUMANJI

A photo posted by therock (@therock) on May 9, 2016 at 10:23am PDT