Today is the anniversary of a weird entry in an oddly formatted franchise. "Zathura :A Space Adventure" is a 2005 fantasy adventure film that is basically Jumanji in space. Jumanji being that movie where a Jungle themed board game can summon an actual jungle and kidnap people. Zathura is about a board game that sends three siblings into a space adventure held entirely in their suburban home. It is a bit more complicated than that but I don't want to spoil this kids movie from nearly 20 years ago.
Anyway this movie gets away with being very close to Jumanji because it's actually an adaptation of the Jumanji's book's sequel, with strong implications that both of the enigmatic board games are the same surreal entity in different forms. The weird thing is that a third Jumanji movie that neither confirms nor denies continuity with Zathura came out that had Jumanji frame itself as a video game. Then a second video game Jumanji film came out. And that's not even touching Jumanji the animated series. Personally I think the Jumanji franchise is a string of unrelated spin offs in a trench coat that I'm pretty sure don't technically contradict each other. Regardless, that board game is evil and I hope nothing like that exists in real life.
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