Outgoing Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy has indicated it may be some time before we see another Indiana Jones movie, saying: “I don’t think anybody is interested right now in exploring it.”
It’s been two-and-a-half years since the critically panned Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny came out, and Lucasfilm has yet to indicate that a follow-up is in the works.
In an interview with Deadline confirming her exit from Lucasfilm after 14 years, Kennedy stood by Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which saw Harrison Ford reprise his role as the much-loved whip-cracking archeologist. Indeed, Kennedy said the reason Lucasfilm went forward with the film was Ford was so keen to do it.
“I have no regrets about that because Harrison wanted to do that more than anything,” she said. “He did not want Indy to end with the fourth movie. He wanted a chance at another, and we did that for him. I think that was the right thing to do. He wanted to do that movie.”
The question now is, will there be another Indiana Jones movie? Harrison Ford, who is approaching his 84th birthday, has said he’s done playing the character, so if Disney were to greenlight a new Indy film or TV series, it would have to be with another actor in the iconic role.
“I don’t think Indy will ever be done, but I don’t think anybody is interested right now in exploring it,” Kennedy confirmed. “But these are timeless movies, and Indy will never be done.”
IGN’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny review returned a 4/10. We said: “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny fails to recapture Spielberg’s magic. With uninspired action and conflicting themes and character motivations, it’s proof that some things should just be allowed to end.”
In February last year, Harrison Ford said he didn’t care that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny flopped critically and commercially, insisting “s**t happens.”
The legendary actor of Star Wars fame told The Wall Street Journal Magazine that, even though he “felt there was another story to tell” in the Indiana Jones universe, he didn’t care that the fifth film was critically panned and is estimated to have lost $100 million after a box office disaster.
“When [Indy] had suffered the consequences of the life that he had to live, I wanted one more chance to pick him up and shake the dust off his ass and stick him out there, bereft of some of his vigor, to see what happened,” Ford said. “I’m still happy I made that movie.”
Following the release of Dial of Destiny, director James Mangold told Variety he had no interest in continuing with Indiana Jones. “I refuse. I just can’t do it,” he said. “The amount of lore and Easter eggs and fan service starts to become antithetical to any of this stuff at a certain point. It isn’t storytelling anymore. It’s large-scale advertising.”
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
