Zathura (film)
Encyclopedia
Zathura: A Space Adventure (or just Zathura) is a 2005 fantasy science fiction film directed by Jon Favreau
, and is loosely based on the illustrated book Zathura
by Chris Van Allsburg
, author
of Jumanji
. It stars Jonah Bobo
as Danny and Josh Hutcherson
as Walter. Tim Robbins
also had a small role as the boys' divorced father. The film was shot in Los Angeles
and Culver City, California
& was released on November 11, 2005 by Columbia Pictures
. Unlike the book, the film contains no Jumanji
material and does not mention any Jumanji
events.
) and Danny (Jonah Bobo
) can never seem to get along with each other, or with their older sister, Lisa (Kristen Stewart
). One day, when their father sets off for work, they quarrel yet again while Lisa is in her bedroom upstairs. Danny is banished into the house's basement
by older brother Walter for hitting him in the face with a baseball. There he discovers a clockwork
-driven space
-themed board game called "Zathura". It is a race game
, and the objective is to reach a space location called Zathura. At each turn, one of its two markers moves along or back on its track, and the game issues a card (all of which are read primarily by Walter, as Danny cannot read properly) of which the effects happen immediately (similar to the clues of Jumanji). The boys start playing the game. On looking out, one of them sees that it has become night, and that the house is no longer on Earth but on a small rock floating in space. According to the instructions, the house will not return to Earth until the game is finished. During the story, the brothers must overcome their ill will toward one another to survive.
Danny and Walter try to tell Lisa, who is in bed, about what happened, but she believes that it is nighttime and refuses to believe the two. When Danny takes his next turn, they receive a card saying that Lisa is frozen in cryonic sleep, leaving the two brothers to fend for themselves. When Walter takes a turn, a toy-sized robot is brought into existance, but grows larger and becomes programmed to attack him. After being chased through the house, the robot becomes disabled falling into the basement as the house falls into the gravitational field of a star. Unexplainedly, the house stops falling into that star. When Danny takes another turn, Zorgons, which are lizard-like aliens, appear in a ship from nowhere and attack the house. Amid the chaos, Walter receives a 'Reprogram' card (which he tries to use on the Zorgons to no effect), and Danny receives a card "Rescue stranded astronaut"; an astronaut appears and must be rescued. The astronaut helps the two to get rid of the Zorgons by turning off all heat in the house, as the Zorgons' vision is thermal
and therefore can only see heat signatures. The astronaut sets a couch on fire and pushes it into space; the Zorgons leave and follow it. The astronaut tells them of the dangers of Zorgons, and telling them that they travel the universe to find heat. After an argument, Danny allows the astronaut to stay to help the two through the rest of the game, much to Walter's disappointment.
Returning to the game, Walter notices Danny has illegally moved his piece forward and accuse him of cheating; he forcibly moves it back while berating Danny, resulting in two arguments one before the move and another after that. The game interprets only Walter's action as cheating and the game punishes him by getting him sucked out into space, but he is rescued by the astronaut, who has a jetpack. The incident increases the tensions between the two brothers. When Walter takes another turn, he receives a '"Shooting star, make a wish as it passes"' card, and following yet another argument instigated by the card an Danny throwing the game down in anger, Walter wishes for a football signed by Brett Favre
. Having feared that Walter wished for Danny to not exist, the Astronaut tells the two that he played the game with his brother many years ago, and him and his brother also despised each other. The astronaut received a "Shooting star, make a wish as it passes" card, and wished for his brother to never be born, therefore leaving him stuck in the game. This story prompts both Danny and Walter to reconcile, and the Astronaut promises to protect the two from any future threats in the game.
By now, Lisa has come out of her cryonic stasis
. The boys and the astronaut do not see her turning up the thermostat
to heat the house because she felt cold, and the resulting heat and light draw Zorgon ships back. The Zorgons shoot at the house, further damaging it, and anchor to it with grapples, and suck the game into their ship along with miscellaneous house debris, which they shovel into their ship's engine in order to use them as fuel. Lisa, now knowing what has happened, joins the trio. Danny, Walter, Lisa, and the Astronaut take refuge in a small room in the upstairs of the house, at the point that safest area in the house as the Zorgons boarded the house in the basement. Walter heads downstairs to try to retrieve the game, but is forced to return upstairs in vain. Danny reluctantly decides to retrieve the game by heading down the basement via a dumbwaiter
, which is large enough for him to fit into, and riskily through a boarding passage into the Zorgon ship where he frees a group of four-eyed goats to distract one of the Zorgons. He rescues the game at the last moment before it would have been shoveled into a furnace. Meanwhile, a Zorgon arrives upstairs to inspect that part of the house, and at the same time, a Zorgon spots Danny getting into the dumbwaiter. The Zorgon alerts the others and a group of them attacks Danny as he tries to head upstairs. Danny is rescued by Walter, but the two are surrounded on the stairway by Zorgons.
The robot, having revived, tries to attack the boys. Walter uses the "Reprogram" card (which he had drawn earlier) on the robot, which then attacks the Zorgons. Of the two Zorgon spaceships, one flees, and another explodes. One Zorgon survives the robot's kamikaze
attack and sneaks up behind Walter and Danny as they are wondering where Lisa is. Before the Zorgon can kill them, Lisa crushes and kills it by shoving Danny's piano down on it. Walter, drawing another "Shooting star, make a wish as it passes" card, wishes that the astronaut had his brother back. A copy of Danny appears. The astronaut apologizes to the copy of Danny, who appears to be his brother. It is revealed that the astronaut and his brother are Walter and Danny from an alternate timeline which started when Walter at the first wish card wished otherwise: "I wish my brother had never been born." The astronaut's brother disintegrates into sparks which enter Danny when the two touch. The astronaut thanks Walter and tells him to take care of Danny, then touches him and turns into a copy of Walter, which smiles at him and disintegrates into sparks which enter Walter. Thus the two time lines merge, and the future caused by Walter wishing Danny away is erased. Lisa is alarmed to find that she had fallen for an older version of her brother, Walter.
In the last throw of the game, the Zorgons, who are now on the warpath against the humans, return with a large fleet, and start blasting the house. Danny scores a move which brings his marker to Zathura, and the Zorgons stop firing. Zathura turns out to be a black hole
, which sucks up the Zorgons along with the house, Lisa and Walter. Moments later, the house is back on Earth, whose structure and furnishings are as they were before the game began and in perfect condition.
As their mother arrives to take them to her house, Lisa orders them to never speak of what happened but as they leave, Walter's bike which appeared floating in space several times drops onto the lawn.
preferred to use practical effects instead of CGI in the film. "...it's so fun to actually shoot real spaceships or have a real robot running around on the set, or real Zorgons built by Stan Winston
. It gives the actors, especially young actors, so much to work off of," he said. Dax Shepard, who plays the astronaut in the film, said that he would not have been interested in doing the film if the effects had been "CGI based". Actress Kristen Stewart
enjoyed the on-set effects, saying that, "When we harpooned walls and ripped them out, we were really doing it. When there was a fire on set, there was really fire," and that, "The only green screen I was ever involved with was for getting sucked out into the black hole." Miniature models were used to create the spaceships, and Favreau enjoyed going back to techniques used in many earlier films such as the original Star Wars trilogy. However, in some shots the Zorgon ships were computer-generated, and digital effects were used in many other shots, such as to create meteors and planets, to add computer-generated legs and arms to the robot suit built by Stan Winston Studios, to digitally augment the Zorgon suits (which were constructed so that the head came out of the front of the suit where the actor's chest was and the actor wore a blue screen hood over his own head), and to create an entirely computer-generated Zorgon for one shot. According to Pete Travers, Visual Effects Supervisor on the film for Sony Pictures Imageworks, retaining the stylized "1950s sci-fi look" from Van Allsburg's book "was a very important aspect of the effects".
Favreau discouraged the notion that the film is a sequel
to the earlier Jumanji, having not particularly liked that film. Both he and author Chris Van Allsburg
(who also wrote the book of the same name upon which Jumanji is based) stated that Zathura is very different from Jumanji.
The soundtrack to the film is an original score by John Debney
and is available on CD.
, with tie-ins including an episode of The Apprentice
showcasing its family appeal.
.
. Even worse, it lost 62% of its audience the next weekend, due to the significant opening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
. It ended up grossing just $29,258,869, less than half of its $65 million budget. The international box office total was $35,062,632, for a total of $64,321,501 worldwide, just under the film's budget. The plot's similarities with Jumanji
proved to be its undoing, with one observer referring to it as "Jumanji in space without Robin Williams
".
Jon Favreau
Jonathan Kolia "Jon" Favreau is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and comedian. As an actor, he is best known for his roles in Rudy, Swingers , Very Bad Things, and The Break-Up. His notable directorial efforts include Elf, Iron Man and its sequel, and Cowboys & Aliens...
, and is loosely based on the illustrated book Zathura
Zathura
Zathura is an illustrated children's book by the American author Chris Van Allsburg as well as a film that was based on the book. Two boys are drawn into an intergalactic adventure when their house is magically hurled through space...
by Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg is an American author and illustrator of children's books. He twice won the Caldecott Medal, for Jumanji and The Polar Express , both of which he wrote and illustrated, and both of which were later adapted into successful motion pictures...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of Jumanji
Jumanji (film)
Jumanji is a 1995 American fantasy-comedy film about a supernatural board game that makes wild animals and other jungle hazards materialize upon each player's move. It was directed by Joe Johnston and is based on Chris Van Allsburg's popular 1981 picture book of the same name...
. It stars Jonah Bobo
Jonah Bobo
-Life and career:Bobo was born in Roosevelt Island, New York. His mother, Denise Raimi, is a physical therapist and personal trainer , and his father, Scot, works in software. He has a younger sister named Georgia. His great-grandmother was Tampa businesswoman and philanthropist Salha "Mama" Bobo...
as Danny and Josh Hutcherson
Josh Hutcherson
Joshua Ryan "Josh" Hutcherson is an American film and television actor. He began working in the early 2000s, appearing in several minor film and television roles...
as Walter. Tim Robbins
Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
also had a small role as the boys' divorced father. The film was shot in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and Culver City, California
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...
& was released on November 11, 2005 by Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. Unlike the book, the film contains no Jumanji
Jumanji
Jumanji is the title of a 1981 children's illustrated short story and fantasy story written and illustrated by the American author Chris Van Allsburg. It was made into a 1995 film of the same name. Both the book and the movie are about a magical board game that implements real animals and other...
material and does not mention any Jumanji
Jumanji
Jumanji is the title of a 1981 children's illustrated short story and fantasy story written and illustrated by the American author Chris Van Allsburg. It was made into a 1995 film of the same name. Both the book and the movie are about a magical board game that implements real animals and other...
events.
Plot
Brothers Walter (Josh HutchersonJosh Hutcherson
Joshua Ryan "Josh" Hutcherson is an American film and television actor. He began working in the early 2000s, appearing in several minor film and television roles...
) and Danny (Jonah Bobo
Jonah Bobo
-Life and career:Bobo was born in Roosevelt Island, New York. His mother, Denise Raimi, is a physical therapist and personal trainer , and his father, Scot, works in software. He has a younger sister named Georgia. His great-grandmother was Tampa businesswoman and philanthropist Salha "Mama" Bobo...
) can never seem to get along with each other, or with their older sister, Lisa (Kristen Stewart
Kristen Stewart
Kristen Jaymes Stewart is an American actress. She is best known for playing Bella Swan in The Twilight Saga. She has also starred in films including Panic Room , Zathura , In the Land of Women , The Messengers , Adventureland and The Runaways .- Early life :Stewart was born and raised in Los...
). One day, when their father sets off for work, they quarrel yet again while Lisa is in her bedroom upstairs. Danny is banished into the house's basement
Basement
__FORCETOC__A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Basements are typically used as a utility space for a building where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system...
by older brother Walter for hitting him in the face with a baseball. There he discovers a clockwork
Clockwork
A clockwork is the inner workings of either a mechanical clock or a device that operates in a similar fashion. Specifically, the term refers to a mechanical device utilizing a complex series of gears....
-driven space
Outer space
Outer space is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including the Earth. It is not completely empty, but consists of a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles: predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and neutrinos....
-themed board game called "Zathura". It is a race game
Race game
Race game is a large category of board games, in which the object is to be the first to move all one's pieces to the end of a track. This is both the earliest type of board game known, with implements and representations dating back to at least the 3rd millennium BC in Egypt, Iraq, and Iran; and...
, and the objective is to reach a space location called Zathura. At each turn, one of its two markers moves along or back on its track, and the game issues a card (all of which are read primarily by Walter, as Danny cannot read properly) of which the effects happen immediately (similar to the clues of Jumanji). The boys start playing the game. On looking out, one of them sees that it has become night, and that the house is no longer on Earth but on a small rock floating in space. According to the instructions, the house will not return to Earth until the game is finished. During the story, the brothers must overcome their ill will toward one another to survive.
Danny and Walter try to tell Lisa, who is in bed, about what happened, but she believes that it is nighttime and refuses to believe the two. When Danny takes his next turn, they receive a card saying that Lisa is frozen in cryonic sleep, leaving the two brothers to fend for themselves. When Walter takes a turn, a toy-sized robot is brought into existance, but grows larger and becomes programmed to attack him. After being chased through the house, the robot becomes disabled falling into the basement as the house falls into the gravitational field of a star. Unexplainedly, the house stops falling into that star. When Danny takes another turn, Zorgons, which are lizard-like aliens, appear in a ship from nowhere and attack the house. Amid the chaos, Walter receives a 'Reprogram' card (which he tries to use on the Zorgons to no effect), and Danny receives a card "Rescue stranded astronaut"; an astronaut appears and must be rescued. The astronaut helps the two to get rid of the Zorgons by turning off all heat in the house, as the Zorgons' vision is thermal
Thermal
A thermal column is a column of rising air in the lower altitudes of the Earth's atmosphere. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of the Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example of convection. The sun warms the ground, which in turn warms the air directly above it...
and therefore can only see heat signatures. The astronaut sets a couch on fire and pushes it into space; the Zorgons leave and follow it. The astronaut tells them of the dangers of Zorgons, and telling them that they travel the universe to find heat. After an argument, Danny allows the astronaut to stay to help the two through the rest of the game, much to Walter's disappointment.
Returning to the game, Walter notices Danny has illegally moved his piece forward and accuse him of cheating; he forcibly moves it back while berating Danny, resulting in two arguments one before the move and another after that. The game interprets only Walter's action as cheating and the game punishes him by getting him sucked out into space, but he is rescued by the astronaut, who has a jetpack. The incident increases the tensions between the two brothers. When Walter takes another turn, he receives a '"Shooting star, make a wish as it passes"' card, and following yet another argument instigated by the card an Danny throwing the game down in anger, Walter wishes for a football signed by Brett Favre
Brett Favre
Brett Lorenzo Favre is a former American football quarterback who spent the majority of his career with the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League . He was a 20-year veteran of the NFL, having played quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons , Green Bay Packers , New York Jets and Minnesota...
. Having feared that Walter wished for Danny to not exist, the Astronaut tells the two that he played the game with his brother many years ago, and him and his brother also despised each other. The astronaut received a "Shooting star, make a wish as it passes" card, and wished for his brother to never be born, therefore leaving him stuck in the game. This story prompts both Danny and Walter to reconcile, and the Astronaut promises to protect the two from any future threats in the game.
By now, Lisa has come out of her cryonic stasis
Stasis
The term stasis may refer to* A state of stability, in which all forces are equal and opposing, therefore they cancel out each other....
. The boys and the astronaut do not see her turning up the thermostat
Thermostat
A thermostat is the component of a control system which regulates the temperature of a system so that the system's temperature is maintained near a desired setpoint temperature. The thermostat does this by switching heating or cooling devices on or off, or regulating the flow of a heat transfer...
to heat the house because she felt cold, and the resulting heat and light draw Zorgon ships back. The Zorgons shoot at the house, further damaging it, and anchor to it with grapples, and suck the game into their ship along with miscellaneous house debris, which they shovel into their ship's engine in order to use them as fuel. Lisa, now knowing what has happened, joins the trio. Danny, Walter, Lisa, and the Astronaut take refuge in a small room in the upstairs of the house, at the point that safest area in the house as the Zorgons boarded the house in the basement. Walter heads downstairs to try to retrieve the game, but is forced to return upstairs in vain. Danny reluctantly decides to retrieve the game by heading down the basement via a dumbwaiter
Dumbwaiter (elevator)
Dumbwaiters are small freight elevators intended to carry objects rather than people. Dumbwaiters found within modern structures, including both commercial and private buildings, are often connected between two floors...
, which is large enough for him to fit into, and riskily through a boarding passage into the Zorgon ship where he frees a group of four-eyed goats to distract one of the Zorgons. He rescues the game at the last moment before it would have been shoveled into a furnace. Meanwhile, a Zorgon arrives upstairs to inspect that part of the house, and at the same time, a Zorgon spots Danny getting into the dumbwaiter. The Zorgon alerts the others and a group of them attacks Danny as he tries to head upstairs. Danny is rescued by Walter, but the two are surrounded on the stairway by Zorgons.
The robot, having revived, tries to attack the boys. Walter uses the "Reprogram" card (which he had drawn earlier) on the robot, which then attacks the Zorgons. Of the two Zorgon spaceships, one flees, and another explodes. One Zorgon survives the robot's kamikaze
Kamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
attack and sneaks up behind Walter and Danny as they are wondering where Lisa is. Before the Zorgon can kill them, Lisa crushes and kills it by shoving Danny's piano down on it. Walter, drawing another "Shooting star, make a wish as it passes" card, wishes that the astronaut had his brother back. A copy of Danny appears. The astronaut apologizes to the copy of Danny, who appears to be his brother. It is revealed that the astronaut and his brother are Walter and Danny from an alternate timeline which started when Walter at the first wish card wished otherwise: "I wish my brother had never been born." The astronaut's brother disintegrates into sparks which enter Danny when the two touch. The astronaut thanks Walter and tells him to take care of Danny, then touches him and turns into a copy of Walter, which smiles at him and disintegrates into sparks which enter Walter. Thus the two time lines merge, and the future caused by Walter wishing Danny away is erased. Lisa is alarmed to find that she had fallen for an older version of her brother, Walter.
In the last throw of the game, the Zorgons, who are now on the warpath against the humans, return with a large fleet, and start blasting the house. Danny scores a move which brings his marker to Zathura, and the Zorgons stop firing. Zathura turns out to be a black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
, which sucks up the Zorgons along with the house, Lisa and Walter. Moments later, the house is back on Earth, whose structure and furnishings are as they were before the game began and in perfect condition.
As their mother arrives to take them to her house, Lisa orders them to never speak of what happened but as they leave, Walter's bike which appeared floating in space several times drops onto the lawn.
Cast
- Josh HutchersonJosh HutchersonJoshua Ryan "Josh" Hutcherson is an American film and television actor. He began working in the early 2000s, appearing in several minor film and television roles...
as Walter - Jonah BoboJonah Bobo-Life and career:Bobo was born in Roosevelt Island, New York. His mother, Denise Raimi, is a physical therapist and personal trainer , and his father, Scot, works in software. He has a younger sister named Georgia. His great-grandmother was Tampa businesswoman and philanthropist Salha "Mama" Bobo...
as Danny - Dax ShepardDax ShepardDax Randall Shepard is an American actor.- Early life :Shepard was born in Milford, Michigan and attended Muir Junior High and Walled Lake Central High School, before enrolling in The Groundlings school. He later received a degree in anthropology at UCLA...
as Astronaut/Future Walter - Kristen StewartKristen StewartKristen Jaymes Stewart is an American actress. She is best known for playing Bella Swan in The Twilight Saga. She has also starred in films including Panic Room , Zathura , In the Land of Women , The Messengers , Adventureland and The Runaways .- Early life :Stewart was born and raised in Los...
as Lisa - Tim RobbinsTim RobbinsTimothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
as Dad - John Alexander (Frank OzFrank OzFrank Oz is a British-born American film director, actor, voice actor and puppeteer who is known for creating and performing the characters Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Show, Cookie Monster, Bert and Grover in Sesame Street, and for directing films, including the 1986 Little Shop of...
, voice) as Robot - Derek MearsDerek MearsDerek Mears is an American actor and stuntman, best known for his role as Jason Voorhees in the reboot of Friday the 13th.-Early life:...
as Lead Zorgon - Douglas TaitDouglas TaitDouglas Tait is an American actor, stuntman and independent filmmaker. His first notable role was as "Jason Voorhees" in the climax of the 2003 horror film Freddy Vs. Jason...
as Head Zorgon - Jeff Wolfe as Master Zorgon
- Adam Wills as Captain Zorgon
Production
Director Jon FavreauJon Favreau
Jonathan Kolia "Jon" Favreau is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and comedian. As an actor, he is best known for his roles in Rudy, Swingers , Very Bad Things, and The Break-Up. His notable directorial efforts include Elf, Iron Man and its sequel, and Cowboys & Aliens...
preferred to use practical effects instead of CGI in the film. "...it's so fun to actually shoot real spaceships or have a real robot running around on the set, or real Zorgons built by Stan Winston
Stan Winston
Stanley Winston was an American visual effects supervisor, makeup artist, and film director. He was best known for his work in the Terminator series, the Jurassic Park series, Aliens, the Predator series, Iron Man, Edward Scissorhands, and Avatar...
. It gives the actors, especially young actors, so much to work off of," he said. Dax Shepard, who plays the astronaut in the film, said that he would not have been interested in doing the film if the effects had been "CGI based". Actress Kristen Stewart
Kristen Stewart
Kristen Jaymes Stewart is an American actress. She is best known for playing Bella Swan in The Twilight Saga. She has also starred in films including Panic Room , Zathura , In the Land of Women , The Messengers , Adventureland and The Runaways .- Early life :Stewart was born and raised in Los...
enjoyed the on-set effects, saying that, "When we harpooned walls and ripped them out, we were really doing it. When there was a fire on set, there was really fire," and that, "The only green screen I was ever involved with was for getting sucked out into the black hole." Miniature models were used to create the spaceships, and Favreau enjoyed going back to techniques used in many earlier films such as the original Star Wars trilogy. However, in some shots the Zorgon ships were computer-generated, and digital effects were used in many other shots, such as to create meteors and planets, to add computer-generated legs and arms to the robot suit built by Stan Winston Studios, to digitally augment the Zorgon suits (which were constructed so that the head came out of the front of the suit where the actor's chest was and the actor wore a blue screen hood over his own head), and to create an entirely computer-generated Zorgon for one shot. According to Pete Travers, Visual Effects Supervisor on the film for Sony Pictures Imageworks, retaining the stylized "1950s sci-fi look" from Van Allsburg's book "was a very important aspect of the effects".
Favreau discouraged the notion that the film is a sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
to the earlier Jumanji, having not particularly liked that film. Both he and author Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg is an American author and illustrator of children's books. He twice won the Caldecott Medal, for Jumanji and The Polar Express , both of which he wrote and illustrated, and both of which were later adapted into successful motion pictures...
(who also wrote the book of the same name upon which Jumanji is based) stated that Zathura is very different from Jumanji.
The soundtrack to the film is an original score by John Debney
John Debney
John C. Debney is an American film composer. He received an Academy Award nomination for his score for Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ...
and is available on CD.
Release
The studio hyped the release of Zathura in an attempt to generate word of mouthWord of mouth
Word of mouth, or viva voce, is the passing of information from person to person by oral communication. Storytelling is the oldest form of word-of-mouth communication where one person tells others of something, whether a real event or something made up. Oral tradition is cultural material and...
, with tie-ins including an episode of The Apprentice
The Apprentice (U.S. TV series)
The Apprentice is an American reality television show hosted by real estate magnate, businessman and television personality Donald Trump, created by Mark Burnett and broadcast on NBC...
showcasing its family appeal.
Critical reception
The film received mostly positive reviews from critics; it currently holds a 76% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
.
Box office
It was considered a flop due to its $13,427,872 opening weekend gross, ranking only #2 for the weekend, far behind Disney's Chicken LittleChicken Little (2005 film)
Chicken Little is a 2005 computer-animated science fiction family comedy film loosely based on the fable The Sky Is Falling. It was the 46th animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation...
. Even worse, it lost 62% of its audience the next weekend, due to the significant opening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a 2005 fantasy film directed by Mike Newell and based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. It is the fourth instalment in the Harry Potter film series, written by Steve Kloves and produced by David Heyman...
. It ended up grossing just $29,258,869, less than half of its $65 million budget. The international box office total was $35,062,632, for a total of $64,321,501 worldwide, just under the film's budget. The plot's similarities with Jumanji
Jumanji (film)
Jumanji is a 1995 American fantasy-comedy film about a supernatural board game that makes wild animals and other jungle hazards materialize upon each player's move. It was directed by Joe Johnston and is based on Chris Van Allsburg's popular 1981 picture book of the same name...
proved to be its undoing, with one observer referring to it as "Jumanji in space without Robin Williams
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
".