Are Disney and Lucasfilm Rebooting Indiana Jones?
Will a stranger be wearing Indiana Jones’ hat in the near future? That’s the rumor, and it comes from DisInsider, which claims that after “letting the franchise rest for a bit,” Lucasfilm will reboot the Indiana Jones IP, with DisInsider expecting them to make some kind of announcement at next year’s D23. I’m not overly familiar with that site, so I don’t know if it’s a reliable source, but it sounds exactly like what these companies would do to Indiana Jones, and I think in the back of our minds, we all knew it was only a matter of time before this happened. Indiana Jones was the brainchild of producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg, who wanted to recapture the feel and tone of the old adventure serials from the ‘30s and ‘40s; originally, Lucas named the character “Indiana Smith” after his dog (yep, that’s where that gag came from), but when he pitched his idea to Spielberg, the director suggested changing “Smith” to “Jones.” Spielberg added the influence of James Bond to the character, which led to them eventually getting Sean Connery to play Indy’s father. The Indiana Jones trilogy was made in the 80s, with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade closing out the decade – and Indy’s story – in 1989. Since then, two more sequels that don’t exist so I don’t even know what I’m talking about were released in 2008 and 2023 (the latter of which I even reviewed, despite it not existing); all but the final installment were directed by Spielberg.
Disney and Lucasfilm are going to give Indiana Jones time to rest, but they’re also going to announce a reboot next year? That gives me just a bit of pause; on the one hand, that seems contradictory, but on the other, it’s exactly the kind of stupid thing Disney and modern Lucasfilm would do – as stupid as rebooting Indiana Jones. There have been rumors of an Indiana Jones reboot for years, with names like Chris Pratt and Bradley Cooper thrown around; nothing ever materialized, and then they made Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which seemed to put the final nail in the franchise’s viability outside of amusement park rides and the occasional video game. But we’re talking about a company that is digging up every IP they have the rights to and making a remake, a reboot, or any other form of continuation through which they can wring every last penny and every last drop of joy and goodwill out of something people love. Every time something like the Lilo and Stitch remake is successful, it puts dollar signs in the Disney brass’ eyes, and they start trying to resurrect dead franchises. They’re also in a tough spot when it comes to Lucasfilm because of the three IPs that came with that acquisition, they killed two on their first project, and the third (and largest) is currently suffering death by a thousand cuts. Financial experts have demonstrated that Disney still hasn’t broken even after their purchase, so on that level, it makes sense that they want to test the viability of Indiana Jones.
But I’m not a Disney shareholder, so I have no financial stake in this, and I can say how much I hate it. Rebooting Indiana Jones is terrible for a few reasons. First of all, does anyone really think they can make a good Indiana Jones movie today, even under the best circumstances? This is the era of “cultural appropriation” and “sensitivity” and girl-bosses and all manner of art-killing woke nonsense. They’re making Tomb Raider games where the main character of a series called Tomb Raider doesn’t raid tombs because it’s racist or something. Indiana Jones’ old refrain of “It belongs in a museum” is considered a hate crime now. They either won’t allow Indy to search for ancient artifacts, or they’ll make him the bad guy – or just as bad as the bad guys – and have him apologize for the West and whatever other sins they decide he’s committed. Second, the female leads will be insufferable, and we got a big taste of that with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s superheroine from Dial of Destiny, who loved herself even more than she hated capitalism and upstaged Indy at every turn, right up till she punched him out at the end. (Take that, patriarchy!) This will be the model for all of Indy’s new ladies. Can you imagine how obnoxious Marion Ravenwood would be if she were in the hands of modern writers? They have two modes when writing women: turning them into Arnold Schwarzenegger and sleep mode. Moreover, and not to take anything away from Karen Allen or Raiders of the Lost Ark, Marion was made even better by the subsequent two films because each woman was different from the others. The hard-drinking tomboy Marion is special because she is unique, followed by Kate Capshaw’s spoiled diva, Willie Scott, and Alison Doody’s passionate academic (and secret Nazi spy), Elsa Schneider. All were great because all were individuals who appealed to Indy for different reasons. Today, each female lead will be a caricature of Marion, misunderstanding why everyone loves her and beating us over the head with how much better than Indy she is.
But the big one, and the one that gets denied most often, is Harrison Ford. You cannot have Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford, despite all the arguments for replacing him. One of those is that other actors have played the part, so it’s nothing new. The other actors who played Indy are River Phoenix, who played him as a kid for ten minutes in a movie that starred Harrison Ford, and Sean Patrick Flanery, who played him as a kid on a TV show that featured an appearance from Harrison Ford to lend the show legitimacy because even the show’s fans knew this was a lark, and Harrison Ford was the real Indiana Jones. Another is that characters are played by new actors all the time, like James Bond and Batman. But James Bond, Batman, and many others are literary characters adapted to film; Indiana Jones was created in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he was played by Harrison Ford. Ford is a part of his conception, not his translation to a new medium. Ian Fleming created James Bond with words printed in paperbacks, Bob Kane and Bill Finger created Batman with drawings and dialogue bubbles, but George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created Indiana Jones with Harrison Ford embodying the character, and that’s a million times different. It’s also important that the James Bond series established changing actors early on; after five films made over six years, Sean Connery didn’t want to come back, so George Lazenby was hired for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which was in theaters two years after Connery’s last (at that point), You Only Live Twice. Then, Connery came back for one more, and two years later, Roger Moore began his tenure. Batman, similarly, hasn’t had many actors continuously play him in live-action; there’s Adam West (1966-1968), Michael Keaton (1989-1992), and Christian Bale (2005-2012). Even the serials from the 1940s had different actors playing Batman. But from 1981 to 2023, over forty years, only Harrison Ford has played Indiana Jones as an adult. You can’t just recast something like that.
Regardless of whether this specific rumor is true, sooner or later, they will reboot Indiana Jones. Even forgetting that we’re talking about shameless Disney and creatively bankrupt Lucasfilm, Hollywood is now obsessed with necromancy, bringing back every franchise that should have been left to rest in peace long ago. There’s nothing any of us can do outside of refrain from watching whatever zombie they turn Indy into, but even financial misfortune doesn’t dissuade them anymore. What I’d prefer they do is make adventure movies in the vein of Indiana Jones like Hollywood used to, with films like Romancing the Stone, The Mummy from the 90s, and the Allan Quatermain movies from Cannon Films (which are based on books much older than Indiana Jones, and which had big-screen adaptations also predating Indy, but Indy’s popularity made Hollywood take another look at H. Rider Haggard’s great white hunter in a pair of movies starring Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone). But we all know they won’t do that; the creatives (the ones who get hired, anyway) don’t have the imagination for it, and the studios don’t have the will to fund something that isn’t a brand name. Like almost everything else from Lucasfilm, it’s just something we’ll have to endure or avoid.
If you want an Indiana Jones fix, I highly recommend tracking down and reading Frank Darabont’s unused script for what eventually became Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods. It has the same basic premise, but it’s executed much differently and infinitely better. I think you’ll like it, and I’ll bet you any amount of money you picture Harrison Ford when you read it.
Let us know what you think of Disney and Lucasfilm rebooting Indiana Jones in the comments!
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