Jake Kasdan’s Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle was one of the surprise hits of 2017, mining a refreshing amount of goofy fun out of a premise that saw a bunch of average teenagers get trapped in the video game bodies of Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black. Given that the movie made just shy of a billion dollars by the time it left theaters in 2018, it was wholly unsurprising when Sony quickly put a sequel into production, with Kasdan and all of his stars set to make their return to Jumanji’s digital dangers.
Earlier this week, reports broke that the studio was now shoring up the sequel’s already excellent cast, with comedian Awkwafina signing on for a trip into the tropical hellscape. Now, Variety is reporting that she’ll be joined by another newcomer, in the form of veteran comedic actor Danny DeVito. Johnson himself confirmed the casting—although, because the movie is coming out on Christmas 2019, he did refer to himself as “Dwanta Claus” (D-want-a Claus? D-wayne-ta Claus?) in the process, which is something we just know we’re going to be thinking about all day.
Anyway: The real question presented by DeVito’s casting is pretty obvious. Will he be playing someone transported into the Jumanji video game, or one of the avatars into which someone is transported? The former seems like a waste of a good DeVito, while the latter just seems—no offense to Danny—needlessly cruel to the poor teen forced to navigate Jumanji from within a 74-year-old man’s frame.