The jungle is coming to you this time. Sony Pictures released a new trailer for “Jumanji: Open World” on Wednesday, October 28, giving fans their best look yet at the fifth film in the franchise and the final chapter of the modern trilogy that began with “Welcome to the Jungle” in 2017.

The tagline sums up the twist: “Our world. New rules. One final game.” Details below come from ComingSoon, which published the trailer and Sony’s official synopsis.

The big twist: Jumanji escapes the console

In the earlier films, players were sucked into the game and had to survive its jungles, deserts and mountains to get home. “Open World” flips that premise. According to the official synopsis, “this time Jumanji breaks free of its console, unleashing its chaos into our world.”

The trailer opens around Christmas, with signs that the game is slipping into reality. It then shows Spencer and his mother being pulled into Jumanji, where Spencer’s mom takes on Dr. Smolder Bravestone’s avatar and Spencer plays Ruby Roundhouse. That body-swap setup has been the series’ main comedy engine, and it looks like it will be again.

The stakes are raised too. “If we lose in here, there won’t be a home to go back to,” Ruby says in the trailer. “No reset. No second chance.”

Who’s back

Director Jake Kasdan returns after helming the previous two films, and he developed the story with Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg.

The core avatar team is back in full:

  • Dwayne Johnson as Dr. Smolder Bravestone
  • Jack Black as Professor Shelly Oberon
  • Kevin Hart as Franklin “Mouse” Finbar
  • Karen Gillan as Ruby Roundhouse
  • Awkwafina as Ming Fleetfoot

Returning players include Alex Wolff, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner, Ser’Darius Blain, Nick Jonas and Danny DeVito. New to the franchise are Lamorne Morris, Brittany O’Grady, Burn Gorman and Nasim Pedrad.

Why the franchise still works

The reboot era has been a surprise success story. Rather than remake the 1995 Robin Williams film, the 2017 sequel turned the board game into a video game and leaned on the comedy of actors playing against type: Jack Black as a teenage girl, Johnson as a nervous gamer. “The Next Level” in 2019 added DeVito and Danny Glover to the swap chaos.

Bringing the game into the real world is a logical last move. It opens the door for action set pieces in familiar places rather than fantasy landscapes, and it gives the finale a sense of scale that the jungle settings could not.

A Christmas release

“Jumanji: Open World” hits theaters on December 25, 2026, setting it up as a family option during the busiest moviegoing stretch of the holiday season. The trailer’s festive opening suggests Sony will lean into that timing in its marketing.

What to watch for

Fans will be curious about how the new cast members fit in, whether the Robin Williams-era mythology gets a nod in a farewell film, and how the creative team plans to tie off the story of Spencer, Martha, Fridge and Bethany. There is also the question of whether “final” really means final, since successful franchises rarely stay closed for good.

The bottom line

The new trailer promises the familiar mix of body-swap comedy and big action, with a fresh twist that unleashes Jumanji on the real world. If the finale lands, it could be one of the season’s biggest crowd-pleasers when it opens on Christmas Day.

Image: Jungle by No machine-readable author provided. Perojevic assumed (base via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain Mark 1.0