With a new Star Wars finally coming out in two months, there’s just one LucasFilm property left to bring back to theaters… and we’re not talking about Howard the Duck or The Radioland Murders. It’s been seven years since the last Indiana Jones movie, and with series star Harrison Ford now a finely-aged 73 years old, rumors have been abounding for a while now that an Indiana Jones 5 – or even a reboot – would need to find a new dashing hero to wear his trademark fedora.
But if you were one of the many people hoping that Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt would take over the franchise, we’ve got big news for you: they’re not recasting Indiana Jones anytime soon.
According to producer Frank Marshall, who worked on all four Indiana Jones movies to date, the are “not doing the Bond thing where we’re going to call somebody else Indiana Jones… we have to figure this out.”
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But Marshall’s statement, from issue #239 of Total Film (via Den of Geek), doesn’t rule out big changes to the franchise. According to Marshall, “We haven’t even sat down to talk about Indy yet… at some point we’ll sit down. But there’s a bunch of people who could probably take the baton.”
“Take the baton” means something entirely different than “takes over the role,” and could indicate that – as hinted at the end of 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a new character could potentially become the star of the hit series and let the original Indiana Jones retire gracefully. However, the implication that Jones’s son Mutt, played by Shia LaBeouf, seems unlikely to bear fruit given the character’s lack of popularity, LaBeouf’s strange anti-celebrity behavior in recent years, and Marshall’s suggestion that “a bunch of people” could be potential replacements.
What that means is that, yes, someone like Chris Pratt (or any other actor, male or female) could very well take the lead in Indiana Jones 5 someday. But they would probably have to do so under the name of “South Dakota McGillicuddy” or “New Jersey Mike” or something like that, instead of “Indiana” and/or “Jones.”
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
