‘Red One’ Director Jake Kasdan Talks Shrinking Dwayne Johnson and Why Kirsten Dunst Has Yet to Return to ‘Jumanji’
After making two Jumanji movies in just four years’ time, Red One director Jake Kasdan needed a major change of scenery.
So when Dwayne Johnson’s right-hand man Hiram Garcia — and president at his Seven Bucks production company — called with an idea to turn “D.J.” into Callum Drift, Santa Claus’ head of security for the Yuletide action-fantasy-comedy, Kasdan welcomed the intention of treating the North Pole like a governmental operation. The plot kicks into gear when Chris Evans’ roguish jack-of-all-trades, Jack O’Malley, pinpoints the top-secret location of the North Pole for monetary gain, enabling the Christmas witch Gryla (Kiernan Shipka) to kidnap J.K. Simmons’ unconventionally fit Santa.
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Johnson’s Drift and the rest of his Secret Service-type organization known as E.L.F. (Enforcement Logistics and Fortification) spring into action by joining forces with Zoe Harlow’s (Lucy Liu) M.O.R.A (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority) to recover “Nick” and hopefully save Christmas. Together, they bring in O’Malley to help them course correct the events he unknowingly set in motion. Drift, as the commander of E.L.F, also happens to be an elf himself, which created the opportunity for Kasdan to play with the visual of a behemoth Dwayne Johnson in miniature form, a sight gag Johnson had previously done in Tooth Fairy (2010).
“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do with him, actually. It was something I’ve talked about doing in Jumanji,” Kasdan tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So I was always looking for the perfect opportunity for him to shrink and stay perfectly proportional as this incredibly strong tiny version of himself.”
Speaking of Jumanji, Sony recently dated Kasdan’s third movie in the reboot trilogy — and the fourth directly connected film in the overall franchise — for 2026. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and 2019’s The Next Level reference and include characters from Joe Johnston’s 1995 original starring Robin Williams, Kirsten Dunst and Bonnie Hunt (who also plays Mrs. Claus in Red One), but they’ve yet to fully merge the two storylines. (Jon Favreau’s 2005 film, Zathura, is arguably connected to the Jumanji film series, as well, since it’s based on Chris Van Allsburg’s sequel to his Jumanji children’s picture book.)
Earlier this year, Dunst told THR she’s never been approached about a cameo in the current trilogy that features the likes of Johnson, Jack Black, Karen Gillan and Kevin Hart, but Kasdan explains that it’s not for lack of trying. The ending of the 1995 film resets the game adventure that Dunst’s Judy and her brother completed alongside Williams’ Alan and Hunt’s Sarah, with only the latter two characters remembering all that took place by the closing credits.
“We love Kirsten. The way the original movie ends, as brilliant as it is, creates a lot of plot complications in trying to continue the story with those characters,” Kasdan says. “But, that said, within that complication, we’ve loved trying to figure out some way to do it in a way that is fun and passes some kind of fidelity to the original story.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Kasdan talks his third Jumanji, all things Red One (now in theaters) and disputes Johnson’s reported misbehavior on set.
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You could’ve taken the safe bet and gone straight into Jumanji 3 or Jumanji 4/5, depending on whom you ask.
(Laughs) Yeah, it depends on where you start counting. [Writer’s Note: Jon Favreau’s 2005 film, Zathura, is technically connected to the Jumanji franchise, and was marketed as such.]
What made you pivot to a Christmas action-comedy with Red One in the meantime?
Honestly, I just got excited about the idea for Red One. We were already working on Jumanji — and we’re still working on Jumanji — but Hiram Garcia, who works with Dwayne, had been thinking about something like this for a long time. He cooked up the beginnings of what Red One turned into, and he called me up one day and said, “What do you think of this?” So I just immediately latched onto it, and that excitement took on its own momentum to where it went first. It was an opportunity to do a fun/funny holiday movie that I’d never really seen before, and it really was as simple as getting excited about what the kernel idea could be.
Was Hiram Garcia’s original idea based around treating Santa like a military or government operation?
That was part of it. The first idea that I grabbed onto was pulling back the curtain and seeing what the North Pole is really like. There’s the story you’ve been told, and then there’s the real-life version. We wanted to realistically fill out the world. What would the North Pole have to look like in order to pull off this enormous task every year? And what kind of guy would actually be at the top of that operation? The second part was this notion of D.J. [Dwayne Johnson] playing Santa’s right-hand man/head of security, or the head of the North Pole Secret Service. It was such a fun/funny idea, and it’s so completely perfect for Dwayne that you could only do it with him. He’s capable of many things, but there are some roles where you can’t imagine another person doing it. It fits perfectly within his persona and all that he brings to a movie like this.
I grew up in Orange County, which you’re vaguely familiar with, and there were a lot of families that celebrated both of the major gift-giving holidays at the end of the year. Did the Kasdans as well? Or is Christmas ubiquitous enough that you understood the assignment?
(Laughs) We did a little bit. I have three kids of my own, and we celebrate Christmas. But I do think it is ubiquitous enough. It’s universal.
Is Christmas the pinnacle of marketing? It’s hard not to get swept up in its enchantment, no matter who you are.
Yeah, I think that’s true. It is the pinnacle of marketing, but it’s only possible because it rings such a powerful bell with people. It’s just really meaningful to a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons. So when you step into something like this, you know that you have to find your own lane, but you also have to respect that you’re working in an arena that’s incredibly important to a lot of different people all over the world. So you want to be respectful, but you also want to find opportunities to have fun. People increasingly want Christmas to start earlier and earlier, and part of that is probably commercial. But another part of it is that people love it, and so they are eager to get to it.
Many of Red One’s recognizable elements are in the public domain, such as all things Santa Claus, the Headless Horseman and Krampus. Were the brand name toys — such as Hot Wheels and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots — the only major things you had to clear?
Those were the big ones. The original idea had to do with taking our first steps into what we call the mythological realm and doing a different take on some of these age-old mythological characters. So the age-old stuff does tend to be in the public domain, but it’s still an original movie. It’s not based on any preexisting material in the way that we’ve become accustomed to it, but in a more classic sense, we’re drawing on tales as old as time, so to speak.
Were you aware that Red One is not the first time that Dwayne has played a character who’s been able to shrink himself? He did so in Tooth Fairy.
(Laughs) Yes, absolutely. That was brought to my attention later in the process. But the shrinking has got its own unique character to it here. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do with him, actually. It was something I’ve talked about doing in Jumanji. So I was always looking for the perfect opportunity for him to shrink and stay perfectly proportional as this incredibly strong tiny version of himself.
Some younger viewers will probably think you took a page out of Ant-Man’s playbook with his character’s ability to shrink himself and enlarge Hot Wheels into working vehicles. But miniature characters, in particular, have been around since the earliest days of cinema. Did you expect to have a generational gap in that regard?
Well, we were conscious of that. The growing and shrinking is a reference to what you know about elves and what elves are really like. They have this smaller form that they sometimes need to use for practical purposes. And then it was always important to us that what they’re actually doing is making things real. Cal takes a toy car and turns it into a real car. He takes the robots and turns them into life-sized versions that can make decisions and are animated with life.
Dwayne took some heat in connection to this movie, but based on the fact that you’ve made three movies together and are about to make a fourth, you clearly work well together. Were those previous reports about his misbehavior blown out of proportion in your estimation?
Wildly — and largely inaccurate. Like you said, I have made three movies in a row with him. I know him really well. He’s a really good guy to work with, and we’ve had a great time together. He’s good to every single person he encounters. In hundreds of days of shooting, I’ve never seen him be anything but a totally stand-up, generous dude with everybody that he works with and everybody he encounters. The guy that you see out in the world and that he presents is very much what he’s like, and if I didn’t love working with him, I wouldn’t keep doing it. He’s that great.
I’m assuming you’ve seen Challengers by now, so were you a little disappointed that Luca Guadagnino beat you to the punch on the churros? [Note: Chris Evans’ Jack O’Malley, while taking his estranged son to school, stops mid-route for a curbside pickup of two churros.]
(Laughs) That’s funny. I feel like we’re onto something in the culture. It’s the year of the churro in film.
The casting of Bonnie Hunt as Mrs. Claus, I see what you’re doing here, Jake. Is this a precursor to the next Jumanji movie? Were you and Dwayne playing the long game so she’d return to Jumanji?
(Laughs) That’s a good idea. I talked to her a lot about our familial Jumanji connection, and she’s the best. She’s just great. She’s someone I’ve always wanted to work with, and this was a great opportunity to finally do it. It’s a small but beloved part of the movie for me, and when she came in, she was all you’d want her to be.
As recently reported, Jumanji 3 is finally materializing in 2026, but it sounds like you’ve been developing it off and on this entire time.
Yeah, exactly. We’ve been working on it on and off throughout the years. Obviously, I went away and made Red One, which was a big deal. It took time and focus and all that it takes to make a movie like this. I also made the previous two Jumanji movies back to back, and we had a great time making those movies. Those were four fantastic years in a row. But it was good for us to take a breath and step away from it for a second. Creatively, it’s good to be able to think about what the next one should be, and also just think about other things for a minute. So, returning to it has been a great feeling, and I’ve loved stepping back into it lately. We’re really starting to contemplate how to do something new with the parts that we love.
I spoke to your Jumanji actor Alex Wolff recently, and every time I talk to him, I bring up the fact that he already came up with the perfect title for this next movie. It came about because I once commented how the end of Jumanji: The Next Level harks back to the original film, as the game elements have returned to the real world. So he coined Jumanji: Full Circle, and he’s signed it over to you.
(Laughs) I love that. It’s great. I love that guy. He’s really onto something.
I also talked to Kirsten Dunst earlier this year, and she said that she’s never been approached about a cameo. She, too, would bring things full circle, as would Bonnie Hunt.
We love Kirsten. She’s fantastic. From the time we did Welcome to the Jungle, we were very focused on keeping a little bit of connectivity to the original movie, which we love. We’ve always wanted to honor it and keep enough of it alive. Also, the way the original movie ends, as brilliant as it is, creates a lot of plot complications in trying to continue the story with those characters. I don’t know how well you remember it, but the world reverts back to what it was before, as though it never happened. Some of the characters are still aware of what happened, but most of them aren’t. So the kids [including Dunst’s Judy] don’t remember because it short-circuits the part where they have the adventure, but Robin [Williams] and Bonnie’s characters are aware.
So it has this complicated, clever bit of storytelling at the end that has always made the challenge of continuing their story very complicated. But, that said, within that complication, we’ve loved trying to figure out some way to do it in a way that is fun and passes some kind of fidelity to the original story. So, in Welcome to the Jungle, there are some references to Robin’s character, and then in The Next Level, we have a character [Judy’s aunt Nora, played by Bebe Neuwirth] that comes back in a way and obeys the previous story told, but in a slightly sideways way. [Writer’s Note: In The Next Level, Nora now owns a local diner, but she makes no mention of her niece and nephew.]
If you can pull off a polar bear as a Secret Service agent in Red One, then I’m confident you can find a way.
(Laughs) There’s always something you can do to pull it off.
Now that you’ve made a Christmas action movie, it’s important that you weigh in on the decades-long debate: is Die Hard a Christmas movie?
(Laughs) I would say it is, yeah. But it’s great in that it stands up anytime of year. So it’s certainly not a movie that you would only watch at Christmas, but it’s a Christmas movie as well.
Lastly, Red One is partially about adults rediscovering their inner child, and it seems like a lot of people today could use a check-in with their childhood self. Was that theme on your mind?
Absolutely. It was really important to all of us to have a thematic core message at the center of Red One. It’s a very affirmative idea, encouraging people to give each other the benefit of the doubt and a little bit of grace, and remember that everybody is a human being. So that was definitely on my mind, and it’s one of the things that we’re reflecting on in different corners of the movie.
Well, I’ll see you in a couple years for Jumanji: Full Circle.
(Laughs.) I love it. We’ll remember back to this moment.
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Red One is now playing in movie theaters.
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