Jumanji 2 will open against Star Wars: Episode IX because nobody scares The Rock

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle was a surprisingly huge hit, pulling some box office attention away from Star Wars: The Last Jedi at the beginning of the year, and it looks like that experience has emboldened Sony so much that it’s going to directly challenge Star Wars when Jumanji 2 rolls around next year. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sony Picture chairman Tom Rothman recently announced that the sequel to Welcome To The Jungle will “be ready for a Christmas 2019 release” and that he’d “bet on seeing Dwayne Johnson in theaters again in December 2019.”

He also quipped that theaters shouldn’t “rush to give all those screens to Star Wars,” which is still pretty big talk considering that The Last Jedi made a few hundred million dollars more than Jumanji did worldwide. Also, Episode IX will be the end of the new trilogy, so expectations—both financial and otherwise—will be pretty high. Still, at least the contrarians of the world will have something to do next Christmas. “Oh, you’re seeing Star Wars? I’m not into that nerd stuff, I’m seeing Jumanji: Welcome 2 Jungle.”