After a career that’s more-or-less perfectly split itself between underrated gems and critically beloved projects like Freaks And Geeks, Walk Hard, or the fantastic Bill Pullman-as-Sherlock-Holmes vehicle Zero Effect, and awful Cameron Diaz vehicles like Bad Teacher or Sex Tape—director Jake Kasdan has once again signed on to a project that seems like a classic definition of hit-or-miss: the long-simmering remake of Jumanji.
It’s been a while since the effort to remake that more-or-less classic book-turned-movie-turned-horrible-nightmare-about-those-awful-fucking-spiders picked up much traction; screenwriters have been signing off and on the project for years at this point, with the dice currently landing on a script from Con Air writer Scott Rosenberg and The Amazing Spider-Man 2’s Jeff Pinkner (neither of which, hopefully, landed on the space with that horrible, disgusting wasp attack). But Kasdan is apparently ready to add yet another terrible-or-secretly-awesome notch to his belt; he’ll have to do it fast, though, because Columbia Pictures is expecting to release its new maybe-bomb this Christmas. (Fingers crossed, meanwhile, that Diaz stays far away from this one and finally breaks the Kasdan Curse.)