Kevin Hart, Dwayne Johnson and Jack Black are dispensing with all the levels.

Sony Pictures unveiled a first look at “Jumanji: Open World,” the long-gestating, latest entry in the action-comedy franchise, at CinemaCon on Monday as part of its presentation to theater owners.

Once again, our heroes find that the boundaries between a fantastical game and the real world have blurred. This time, the three leading actors will play three different characters. Johnson’s Dr. Bravestone, for instance, is Spanish (he pronounces charisma like the guy from the Dos Equis ads), while Hart and Black’s characters are “stuck in demo mode” and still working out a few kinks. Hopefully, they adapt quickly, because the trailer that Sony shared included plenty of scenes of jungle beasts rampaging through a pastoral New England town.

“Jumanji” is one of the most successful series at Sony, but seven years have passed since 2019’s “Jumanji: The Next Level” opened and nearly a decade since 2017’s “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” debuted. The movies were inspired by the 1995 Robin Williams hit “Jumanji,” which Hart, Johnson and Black said will be celebrated in the new film with an Easter egg. This film includes the original dice used in the first “Jumanji.”

“Robin, this one’s for you,” Johnson said, gesturing skyward in a nod to Williams, who died in 2014.

Jake Kasdan, who helmed the previous “Jumanji” films, is back behind the camera again. Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Awkwafina, Alex Wolff, Morgan Turner and Danny DeVito reprise their roles from the previous films. The latest “Jumanji” opens on December 25, 2026.

Johnson has teased that the franchise, or at least the part that stars him, will end with this third film. If it reaches the box office heights of its predecessors, it seems likely that Sony will find other ways for “Jumanji” to live on.

It may not be a hard sell for the actors. Most of the cast on stage said they loved making the latest “Jumanji,” with Black calling it his favorite moviemaking experience.

“This was not a good time for me,” Hart interjected jokingly. “It was fucking work!”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron is facing renewed criticism for his lack of support for President Donald Trump’s war against Iran and demands to include Lebanon in the current ceasefire as historic talks between Israel and Lebanon are set to begin Tuesday.

The historic meeting brokered by President Trump between Lebanon, a former French mandate, and Israel will take place at the ambassador level as hopes for an agreement evolve ­— most noticeably without French involvement. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to host both nations’ ambassadors.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel’s government requested that France be excluded from the talks. An Israeli official told the paper that “France’s conduct over the past year – including initiatives aimed at limiting Israel’s ability to fight in Iran, and a complete lack of willingness to take concrete steps to help Lebanon disarm Hezbollah – has led Israel to view France as an unfair mediator.”

IRAN’S TERROR PROXIES FROM IRAQ-TO-LEBANON SAY READY TO RESPOND TO US-ISRAEL ATTACKS

On Monday, Hezbollah chief Naim ​Qassem called on the Lebanese government to ​cancel the ​Tuesday meeting in Washington, while ⁠describing the talks as pointless. In ​a televised ​speech, Qassem said the ‌armed ⁠group will continue to confront Israeli attacks on ​Lebanon.

Hezbollah violated a ceasefire to enter the war on its patron, Iran’s side, in March, when it launched rockets into Israel after the U.S.-Israel joint attack on the Islamic Republic began. Still, Macron has demanded Israel stop attacking Hezbollah’s terror infrastructure in Lebanon.

Israeli Brig. General (Res.) Yosef Kuperwasser told Fox News Digital that Macron was “working against the best interests of the Lebanese state and government. This is a very problematic direction.” He accused Macron of taking the side of Hezbollah and normalizing Hezbollah because he is focused on “narrow interests.”

IRAN THREATENS TO END CEASEFIRE OVER HEZBOLLAH’S EXCLUSION FROM TRUCE DEAL

The former head of research for the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate, Kuperwasser, added that the “Americans want us to engage with the Lebanese along with the military [in Lebanon]. Our expectations are very similar. We want to see Lebanon do something about Hezbollah, something real, not just issue statements and pledges. We believe we have helped them by weakening Hezbollah militarily since they decided to launch missiles on March 2. If there is a breakthrough, Lebanon has a lot to gain,” but said it has to “disarm Hezbollah.”

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

Macron has faced accusations over the years that he has normalized Hezbollah. His government, in contrast to Germany, the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Austria and many other Western and non-Western countries, refuses to designate Hezbollah’s entire organization a terrorist entity. France has classified Hezbollah’s “military wing” a terrorist organization but declined to ban its “political wing.” Hezbollah considers itself a unified movement without branches.

The French politician François-Xavier Bellamy, who is a member of the European Parliament for the Republicans Party, said last week on French television that “France must stop normalizing Hezbollah.” Macron sparked outrage in 2020 when he reportedly held a private conversation with a top elected Hezbollah official, according to the Paris-based daily Le Figaro.

Edy Cohen, an Israeli security expert on Hezbollah, who was born in Lebanon, told Fox News Digital, “France is forced not to come out against Hezbollah in order to legitimize its involvement in Lebanon.”

A French diplomat told the Times of Israel that “what we are hoping for is not a ticket to the meeting, but that Israel stops its offensive on Lebanon.”

When asked if France would pressure Lebanon to recognize Israel as a state, Pascal Confavreux, a spokesman for France’s Foreign Ministry, told “Fox News Sunday” that, “Iran has to stop terrorizing Israel through Hezbollah because Hezbollah chose to bring Lebanon into a war which is not Lebanon’s war… Lebanon has to be included in the ceasefire, something that we are pushing diplomatically.” He continued that we are in favor of direct talks between Lebanon and Israel.

It is not known if France asked for a seat at the talks. Fox News Digital sent multiple press queries to France’s embassies in Washington, D.C., and Tel Aviv.

IDF UNCOVERS HEZBOLLAH WEAPONS STASH INSIDE HOSPITAL IN LEBANON

On Saturday, Macron again pushed his desire for a ceasefire and wrote on X that he had discussions with Iran’s President Massoud Pezeshkian: “I stressed the importance of full respect for the ceasefire, including in Lebanon. France extends its full support to the actions of the Lebanese authorities, who alone are legitimate to exercise the sovereignty of the State and decide the destiny of Lebanon.”

Walid Phares, an expert on Lebanon and the region, told Fox News Digital that while the talks are important, problems exist. “It is at ambassadors’ level, which means it is not destined to reach a top level of decision-making.”

He added, “Strangely, the Lebanese president and prime minister declined to invite the Lebanese foreign minister to the Washington talks, provoking a representation by Israel, also at ambassadorial level, showing that Hezbollah still has a strong influence on the Lebanese government. The militia is being rejected by the population on the ground and fears a meeting in D.C. would ostracize Hezbollah further.”

Sethrida Geagea, a member of parliament from the Lebanese Forces party, posted on X ahead of the Israel-Lebanon talks an open letter to Nabih Berri, the powerful speaker of the Lebanese Parliament and leader of the Shiite Amal Movement. She issued indirect criticism of Hezbollah and its terrorist army within the state. Geagea appealed to Berri to unify the Lebanese to be “protected by a single army.”

Without naming Hezbollah, her letter stated that young Shiites have been plunged into war that has nothing to do with them and the conflict is really about an Iranian decision to retaliate for the joint U.S.-Israel war that killed the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28.

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The State Department did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital press query.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Modern wars consume drones at a much higher rate than traditional ammunition. Ukraine uses approximately 9.000 drones per day, roughly 270.000 units monthly. Estimates suggest that Iran can produce approximately 400 Shahed drones per day, for a monthly capacity of up to 12.000 units.

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This staggering churn is pushing the EU towards mass-scale industrial production, as existing drone stockpiles and manual manufacturing cannot keep pace with battlefield losses.

The bloc’s inability to scale production is creating a strategic dependency on external suppliers like the US or China, leaving its borders vulnerable to disposable, “cheap” warfare that the current industrial pace cannot sustain.

To counter this vulnerability, the EU has launched the 2026 European Drone Defence Initiative (EDDI), to build a multi-layered, 360-degree shield of interoperable counter-drone systems by 2027.

Complementing the EDDI is the Drone Alliance with Ukraine, which leverages battlefield-tested expertise to co-produce millions of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Utmost strategic importance

Drones went from niche tools to key war instruments because of three advantages: low cost, constant surveillance, and precision strike capability.

In Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both sides rely on drones for reconnaissance and targeting. Commercial quadcopters, which can cost just a few hundred euros, spot enemy positions and guide artillery in real time. This shortens the time between detection and destruction from hours to minutes. Larger systems, such as Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2, were used to destroy supply convoys and air defence systems early in the conflict, which set a new international war standard.

“Drones evolve technologically every three to six months. So, it’s also challenging to buy millions of drones that will be obsolete in 12 months from now”, shared Nikolaus Lang, Global Leader at BCG Henderson Institute.

Drones are cheap to produce, but expensive to defend against. In traditional wars, destroying a target required expensive aircraft or missiles, until Ukraine showed that today, a cheap “kamikaze” drone can destroy equipment worth millions.

Russia used many Iranian Shahed drones, each relatively inexpensive, to strike Ukrainian infrastructure. But defending against them requires pricey air-defence missiles or fighter jets, which creates a strategic imbalance where the defender spends far more than the attacker.

“Europe needs cheaper and quicker solutions”, said Jamie Shea, former NATO official, Senior Fellow at Friends of Europe and Senior Advisor at the European Policy Centre in Brussels. “The EU uses very expensive means to neutralise drones. You’ve seen in Iran, where $3 million missiles are used to shoot down drones of just a couple of thousand dollars”, he said.

Military analysts from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies describe drones as one of the most disruptive economic shifts in warfare in decades.

Drones also democratise air power. In earlier conflicts, only advanced dominated the air, but this changed during the Nagorno-Karabakh War as Azerbaijani forces used drones to systematically destroy Armenian tanks and artillery.

In the Gaza Strip, both state forces and non-state actors use modified commercial drones for surveillance and attacks. Now even relatively small or poorly equipped groups can carry out aerial operations, which lowers the barrier for effective military force.

Europe falls behind

For Europe, urgency stems from external threats and internal weaknesses. Drone incidents near critical infrastructure quadrupled between 2024 and 2025. In September, Copenhagen and Oslo closed airports after “several large drones” caused 109 cancellations and 51 reroutes. A month later, Munich Airport closed twice in 24 hours for the same reason.

The strategic concern is that the EU is not yet structured for a “drone-saturated” battlefield or security environment. Recent incidents forced costly responses: for example, in September of 2025, approximately 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, so NATO deployed F-35 fighter jets to neutralize the threat, which cost at least €1.2 million.

To avoid this, Shea explained that the EU should develop advanced sensor technology, including a 360-degree sensor aperture that shoots down malicious drones.

Ramping up production

The EU supplies less than 30 per cent of its own military drone needs. By comparison, China and Ukraine produce millions of units annually, while the US is scaling up to hundreds of thousands.

To address this, the Commission launched an industrial push to fundamentally restructure drone design, production, and deployment. The goal is scale: faster production cycles, higher volumes, and lower costs, because modern drone warfare is less about sophistication and more about quick, adaptable mass production.

Traditional European defence procurement is slow, often taking years from concept to deployment. This approach seeks to shorten timelines through modular designs, faster testing, and continuous upgrades, enabling rapid drone adaptation. So, the Commission introduced AGILE (fast-track funding), the EU Defence Innovation Scheme, and BraveTech EU.

Low-cost production is another pillar, with initiatives focused on affordability, scalability, and dual-use manufacturing. The EU is engaging civilian industries (e.g., automotive, electronics) and SMEs, which are more agile than large contractors and better suited to rapid prototyping and innovation. Funding tools will support efforts across member states.

Europe has massively levelled up its defence R&D investments, but it’s still not enough, according to Lang. He pointed out that the “US invested more than $900 billion, Europe only $450 billion altogether”.

The EU will also rely on the Drone Alliance with Ukraine; a 2024 multinational military partnership created to secure Ukraine’s UAV supply through constant deliveries of drones tailored to frontline requirements.

The Alliance allowed the EU to establish a network of factories for Ukrainian-designed drones on European soil. So European firms can bypass traditional bureaucracy by testing new prototypes on the front lines in weeks rather than years.

The alliance is boosted by billions from frozen Russian assets, specifically set to scale up production of low-cost autonomous systems. This collaboration wants to deliver over two million drones annually by 2030.

These initiatives should reduce dependence on non-European suppliers, alongside efforts to secure supply chains for critical drone components (like semiconductors, sensors, and communication systems) within EU borders and among trusted partners.

A key tool is the planned “EU trusted drone” label, to certify systems that meet security and reliability standards. It’s designed to guide procurement decisions, encourage the use of European-made technologies, and ultimately create a more self-sufficient and resilient drone ecosystem.

EU policy meets military drones

Russia’s violation of NATO airspace (37 times since 2022) and the war in Iran pushed the EU to start redefining its defence strategy, shifting from civil drone regulation to security measures and funding initiatives.

The Commission’s 2026 Action Plan on Drone and Counter-Drone Security addresses the use of drones in conflicts that target critical infrastructure, borders, and airspace. It targets the EU’s real-time detection capacities and develops a unified defence approach against malicious operations.

It also boosts member states’ industrial cooperation and drone markets to reduce dependence on non-EU suppliers. Investing in the small niche companies, where innovation lies, is key. “Europe needs to create greater risk, expand our venture capital market, and simplify procurement regulatory barriers”, Shea argued.

The roadmap focuses on four priorities: boosting resilience through industrial ramp-up, improving threat detection through stronger surveillance, responding and defending with a coordinated strategy, and strengthening the EU’s defence readiness.

Detecting and tracking threats requires advanced AI-powered technological infrastructure. The Commission foresees accelerating technological development by using 5G networks to improve real-time threat detection.

The action plan is strong as “it identifies the problem and mobilises resources”, Shea said. Yet the EU needs to learn from Ukraine’s drone strategy: “Ukraine is doing 50 per cent of the work for us. It’s developing the intelligence and offering to share sensitive data. It’s also showing Europe how AI should be integrated into counter-drone technology”.

The EDDI is a key part of the action plan, and it acts as a shield for the bloc’s airspace. Through its multi-layered, interoperable system, the initiative detects, tracks and defends the EU from hybrid threats and drone incursions.

Running on AI-powered sensing and counter-drone technologies, the EDDI supports the Eastern Flank Watch, which is also part of the Commission’s Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030. It is an EU-NATO initiative to protect the EU’s border with Russia and Belarus, using specialised counter-drone technologies and boosting air defence, surveillance, and rapid threat response while improving cooperation with NATO operations, such as Eastern Sentry and Baltic Air Policing.

Security and defence remain national

Though the EU is shifting towards scalable, networked, AI-driven, and mass-produced warfare equipment, defence and security remain national, meaning that member states have individual defence priorities and budgets. Fragmented national procurement practices, critical infrastructure protection, and different rules governing drone and counter-drone systems obstruct Europe’s new defence strategy.

Shea warned that Europe should establish a common legal framework so that all member states can develop and test drone technology equally.

“European states need to monitor the same airspace all the time, so that somebody in France is looking at the same air picture as somebody in Poland or Estonia”, he underlined.

Another issue? Fragmented national investments in drone innovation. “Some countries, like Denmark or Germany, have been much more upfront than others, also in forming joint ventures with Ukrainian manufacturers”, Shea said.

Likewise, 80 per cent of EU procurement is at national level. “We need many more of these initiatives to overcome the fragmentation of defence procurement”, warned Lang.

According to Shea, the EU should also eliminate bureaucratic obstacles to enable sensitive information sharing, such as drone threat intelligence and airspace monitoring, between member states.

“Drones are getting faster and sharing information is fundamental, but the EU needs to ensure safe security protocols to encourage countries to share data”.