Home Entertainment Indiana Jones 5 is keeping George Lucas away from any story duties

Indiana Jones 5 is keeping George Lucas away from any story duties

4 min read
30

Indiana Jones 5

Just like Geoff’s horrific dad jokes, people wish that they could forget about Indiana Jones 4. On paper, the return of Indiana Jones should have been the stuff of legend, another entry in a magnificent franchise that should have turned a ground-breaking trilogy of movies into a legendary quadrilogy. The end result however? An over reliance on CGI, a complete waste of John Hurt’s acting talents and the introduction of Mutt.

No seriously, what happened there? Some of that blame could possibly go back to George Lucas, who came up with the story for Indy 4 with screenwriter David Koepp. It wasn’t exactly Lucas at his finest, as the film failed to hit the narrative high-notes that the original films did. But Indiana Jones 5? You won’t see Lucas handling a script for that film, as he’ll be confined to executive production duties.

So said Koepp to Collider, who confirmed that Lucas was absent from any plot duties on Indiana Jones 5:

Indiana Jones 5 (1)

He’s not, to my knowledge. I’ve had no contact with him.

Usually, an Indiana Jones movie revolved around George Lucas coming up with an idea that Steven Spielberg would direct. But with The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull taking a severe beating at the box office, there were obviously some lessons to be learnt there, as Koepp explained:

I think that what [Indy] looks for and when he looks for it dictates what the movie’s gonna be. So the selection of the MacGuffin is everything. I think Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, being set in 1957 there was a conscious desire to say, ‘Much like two of the other ones were World War II movies set in the 30s and early 40s, this is ’57 so a lot of our influences are gonna be science-fiction movies.’ You got that with the original [script], Jeb Stuart took the first shot at it with Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men from Mars.

That was a really conscious decision that dictated a lot about what the story would be and what the movie would be like, and I think that was followed through on really nicely. I thought Steve did a really good job with that. I don’t know that the idea was most suited to an Indiana Jones movie, but that was what we did.

So we tried to be very careful with the selection of the MacGuffin and the eras to give ourselves as much latitude to make the best kind of Indiana Jones movie that we most want to see. Learning how that’s the importance of the choice of the MacGuffin is a big deal.

Basically, the focus for Indiana Jones 5 will be to not focus too heavily on said MacGuffin:

Indiana Jones 5 (4)

It’s hard because you can learn like if something maybe didn’t work as well as you think it would well we certainly wouldn’t do that again, but you wouldn’t have done that again anyway, you already did it, so it’s hard to say. For me it was the MacGuffin dictates everything, and so we tried to make the best possible choice we could. Not that nobody didn’t try to make the best choice that they could in the past, but we tried to give us the one that gave us the Indiana Jones movie we most wanted to see.

Thing is, Indiana Jones 5 could be stuck in development hell for a very long time, and Harrison Ford isn’t exactly getting any younger. Unless the fifth film has him searching for the fountain of youth that is. So what’s the actual progress then on the fifth film? “ It feels like it has a lot of momentum behind it,” Koepp explained.

We have ‘top men’ working on it as we speak (laughs). No, it’s going really well. I really like our idea; I think it’s clean and simple and makes a lot of sense, and I feel like the writing is going really well.

It’s probably going to be a while before Spielberg even has enough time to make Indiana Jones 5 however. He’s still busy with his sci-fi flick Ready Player One, and his next project happens to be The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara with Mark Rylance and Oscar Isaac next year. And that’s with Disney forecasting that Indiana Jones 5 will hit cinemas in July of 2019. That Spielberg certainly is one busy fella.

Last Updated: October 25, 2016

30 Comments

    • VampyreSquirrel

      October 25, 2016 at 09:18

      • Alien Emperor Trevor

        October 25, 2016 at 09:24

        No, cos racing games without weapons are boring.

        Reply

        • VampyreSquirrel

          October 25, 2016 at 09:27

          I played the hell out of that racing game cos I didn’t have any others at the time.

          Reply

        • Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0

          October 25, 2016 at 09:30

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            October 25, 2016 at 09:31

            Yes!

          • VampyreSquirrel

            October 25, 2016 at 09:31

            Didn’t have that one.

          • Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0

            October 25, 2016 at 09:34

            Was all the rage back then, especially if you had in colour instead of just blue and purple

          • VampyreSquirrel

            October 25, 2016 at 09:39

            Or black and white… or black and orange… or black and green xD

            What’s the name of it? It does look familiar, maybe a friend had it.

          • Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0

            October 25, 2016 at 09:40

            Death Track

          • Admiral Chief

            October 25, 2016 at 09:47

            (it is actually in the URL if you hover the mouse over it)
            [flies away]

          • VampyreSquirrel

            October 25, 2016 at 10:06

            hahaha… like I’d ever do that.

        • VampyreSquirrel

          October 25, 2016 at 09:32

          Oh wait, I also played the hell out of Stunts

          Reply

  1. Admiral Chief

    October 25, 2016 at 09:18

    George belongs in a museum

    Reply

  2. Admiral Chief

    October 25, 2016 at 09:18

    That Shia le-woof dude really went off the rails

    Reply

  3. Admiral Chief

    October 25, 2016 at 09:21

    • Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0

      October 25, 2016 at 09:29

      XD

      Reply

  4. Andre Fourie

    October 25, 2016 at 09:29

  5. Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0

    October 25, 2016 at 09:30

    I bet he dies in this one just like that other movie

    Reply

    • HvR

      October 25, 2016 at 09:35

      Snake pit death scene….

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0

        October 25, 2016 at 09:39

        He does hate snakes so

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief

          October 25, 2016 at 09:47

          SNEK!

          Reply

  6. Andre Fourie

    October 25, 2016 at 09:33

  7. Andre Fourie

    October 25, 2016 at 09:34

  8. Admiral Chief

    October 25, 2016 at 09:37

  9. Admiral Chief

    October 25, 2016 at 09:39

  10. Original Heretic

    October 25, 2016 at 09:54

  11. DragonSpirit009

    October 25, 2016 at 10:45

    Well the fourth one was a bit different compared to the others but I still liked it. But I’m hoping the next one would bring the franchise back to its glory state!

    Reply

    • Andre Fourie

      October 25, 2016 at 11:11

      Me too. I love Indiana Jones. Just a shame Ford is getting a bit long in the tooth now.

      Reply

    • Nnnnnna

      October 25, 2016 at 22:05

      Same here! I like it just as much as the other films, which is plenty.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Netflix signs massive deal with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners

Netflix has landed arguably their biggest signing yet in securing Steven Spielberg's Ambli…