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Submitted for your approval: a board game that comes to life.
Why not? The original run of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone (airing regularly on SYFY) is full of classic episodes in which inanimate objects gain sentience and wreak all sorts of havoc in the real world — some of the most notable examples being “The After Hours,” “The Fever,” “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” “Living Doll,” and “The New Exhibit.”
That’s the vibe acclaimed author/illustrated Chris Van Allsburg wanted to capture when he was asked to adapt his Caldecott-winning children’s book Jumanji for the big screen (the 1995 film is now streaming on the SYFY app).
How Jumanji‘s big screen adaptation started off as an extended Twilight Zone episode
“I always envisioned a thing that was kind of like an extended Twilight Zone episode,” Van Allsburg tells SYFY WIRE.
While this early draft of the script was strong enough to draw in Joe Johnston as director and Robin Williams as leading man, the former “wanted more excitement,” Van Allsburg remembers. “He wanted it to be an action film.” And so, the script went through several more iterations under three more writers: Jonathan Hensleigh (Die Hard with a Vengeance), Greg Taylor (Harriet the Spy), and Jim Strain (Space Warriors), all of whom received final credit.
“That was what got made, a screenplay that had gone through a serial collaboration,” adds Van Allsburg. “I didn’t get a screen credit, but I did get a story credit, which is fine with me. People think that the story credit is is based on the fact that the basis of the film is the book I wrote, but story credit is a standalone credit for narrative material that’s provided to the screenwriters who incorporate that narrative material into a screenplay.”
One of the biggest contributions from those subsequent creatives was the addition of the titular jungle adventure’s now-iconic slogan: “A game for those who seek to find a way to leave their world behind,” Van Allsburg said. “They were trying to create a connection between the power of the game and the people who played it. The game beckons people who are discontent with their lives.”
It was Van Allsburg, however, who came up with the critical plot point of Alan Parish getting a second shot at his childhood once the game was finally completed, rather than have the adult Alan stuck in a world where everything and everyone he ever knew is gone. “If you have a character whom you are sympathetic towards; [a character] who you’ve seen go through an ordeal, who you’ve seen lose something, but is also presented as heroic, you have to find a way to reward that character … The boy is rewarded by getting his life back.”
Jumanji is now streaming on the SYFY app. Classic episodes of The Twilight Zone air regularly on SYFY. Click here for complete scheduling info!
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