Don't be surprised if the action-adventure "Zathura" has a feel similar to the hit movie "Jumanji." After all, the author of both books that the movies were based upon -- Chris Van Allsburg -- intended it to be that way.

New on DVD Tuesday, "Zathura" tells the story of Danny (Jonah Bobo) and Walter (Josh Hutcherson), a pair of feuding brothers who are magically transported into outer space while playing vintage board game about intergalactic travel. Along for the ride is their teenage sister (Kristen Stewart), who finds out that she and her brothers must cooperate if they are to fend off aliens and finish the game so they can return home.

The interesting thing about the brothers in "Zathura is that their first appearance in print didn't come in the 2002 release of the book, but on the last page of the book "Jumanji," written by Van Allsburg 21 years earlier.

"I didn't put the characters there with the intention of providing myself a doorway into a sequel opportunity, but I liked the idea of a book that doesn't absolutely end on the last page and invites speculation on the parts of the readers," Van Allsburg explained to me in a recent @ The Movies interview. "But I was tempted by all these questions I got from kids over the years about what happened to Danny and Walter."

Van Allsburg said that even though he tries not to revisit any story themes, he decided to create "Zathura" as more of an artistic voyage.

"I contemplated it in sort of the same way artists undertake a subject matter again and again," said Van Allsburg, who does the art for all of his books. "When Monet kept on painting haystacks, there was this desire of perfecting his art. When I look back on 'Jumanji' -- and even though I was satisfied with it -- I thought there was something missing in it and it was essentially a compelling kind of character story for the boys who played it. So I thought I would re-tell the 'Jumanji' story, but with a different setting and with characters who had other problems to solve besides finishing the game."

Also the creator of the classic book "The Polar Express," Van Allsburg has no doubt carved himself a fine reputation as a storyteller in Hollywood. The Caldecott-winning author is humble about the success of his books-turned-films, though, claiming that he's really only a person who planted the seed for a much bigger undertaking.

"I try to be realistic about it -- people always ask me about the trials and tribulations of something being adapted," Van Allsburg said. "People think that it's like handing a blueprint over to your contractor and thinking he's going to build what you want. That's not the way it works."

That's not to say, though, that Van Allsburg is entirely hands-off when it comes to the filming of his stories. In fact, the filmmakers almost always invite his participation at some point of the process.

"In 'Jumanji,' Sony was having some problems with script development so I wrote a bunch more material -- kind of a treatment. And thought I wasn't a credited screenwriter, I got a story credit because of those contributions. In that case, I was involved with the development of the adaptation of the book," Van Allsburg said.

Nine years later, after "Jumanji" came out in 1995, Van Allsburg found himself on the train to Hollywood again, this time riding aboard "The Polar Express."

"In the case of 'The Polar Express,' I did some of the same story development after I read early drafts of the screenplay, but I was not quite as deeply involved because the filmmaker, Robert Zemeckis, had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted and had collaborated with the screenwriter (William Broyles Jr.) before," Van Allsburg said. "I was pretty confident that the director knew what he was doing."

In the case of "Zathura," Van Allsburg said he made notes after he read various drafts of the screenplay, but stepped back when he needed to. He knows the roles of authors, and authors who collaborate on films, are two different animals.

"I never was enlisted as a real creative force in the filmmaking of 'Zathura' because I'm not a filmmaker," Van Allsburg told me. "In the realm of undertaking things that are artistic, there cannot be anything more collaborative than filmmaking. I toil in an art form that isn't the least bit collaborative, until I'm done with it, that is. Then I collaborate with a printer to make a book.

"But films are so massively collaborative, even in the parts of them when you think they'd be better served by an individual creative force at work," Van Allsburg added with a laugh. "Even when the script is being developed, there's studio people, the director, the writer, a couple of producers -- it's rough. It's not what I'm used to. I just crawl into my studio and do what I want."

For the movie studio's choice of the director of "Zathura," Van Allsburg said he was very happy with the employment of Jon Favreau.

Van Allsburg was aware of how the actor-director's childlike sense of wonder brought "Elf" so vividly to life. But what truly impressed the author about the "Zathura" adaptation was not only how he brought the sense of wonder to the film, but the sense of childhood emotions.

"He certainly has an instinct for the way kids express themselves and what bothers them," Van Allsburg said. "Even though it's all set up, the early parts of the film where he's merely establishing the level of antagonism and resentment in the kids is something I really enjoy a lot. It's not what you would call the meat of the story and it is in the sense, a set-up, but the way he has these kids going at each other is pretty amusing and pretty accurate."

While the brouhaha between the brothers makes for good entertainment, it's also an important means to an end. And although it was not his intention to teach any lessons in "Zathura," he's glad that they emerge from the story.

"I'm sort of careful as a storyteller not to let those intentions or desires come to the forefront of the text. The goal is to tell a compelling story," Van Allsburg explained. "I find that it's almost always the case that in the effort to create a compelling story, you're usually embracing ideas and themes that are significant in people's lives."

In the book, Van Allsburg said, the idea was to have these brothers endure the experience to see how one of them was willing to sacrifice himself for the other.

"It mends a relationship that was broke in the beginning and they become real brothers in the end," Van Allsburg said. "I wasn't sitting around thinking, 'What the world needs now is a book about sibling rivalry and how two brothers overcome it. I just sat down and wrote a story that had a couple of brothers who were at each other all of the time, and that's where the last page went. That's where I got to."