Currently untitled, the upcoming fifth installment in the Indiana Jones franchise will be landing soon with some familiar faces but a different writing team. The film will be directed by James Mangold, with a script co-written by Mangold, Jez Butterworth, and John-Henry Butterworth. It will mark the first installment not directed by Steven Spielberg or with a story written by George Lucas. Spielberg will serve as a producer instead.
It will be a sequel to the … mixed bag of a 2008 film Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Harrison Ford will reprise his role as Indiana Jones, and joining him will be Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Kretschmann, Boyd Holbrook, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Toby Jones, and Antonio Banderas. We have yet to see if Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood will return since she returned for Crystal Skull to marry Indy, and they share a son, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf). Waller-Bridge will play Helena, Indiana Jones’s goddaughter, and John Rhys-Davies is returning as Sallah, last seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
From D23, audiences saw: “Indy (Ford) walking across a bridge like the one in the first look photo, then running across the top of a train at night, chasing a plane on a motorcycle, riding a horse, and more. It’s an action-packed first look full of chase sequences, but it also features some flashbacks of a younger Indy as well as at least one major character reprisal.”
It is the first film in the Indiana Jones series to be released by Disney Studios since Lucasfilm’s acquisition by Disney back in 2012. It is also Lucasfilm’s first live-action film outside the Star Wars franchise since the deal. We can hope that Ford was more excited to return to Indy than he was to Han Solo. Mangold has written Logan, Walk the Line, and Girl, Interrupted, to name a few. Overall, he is a talented writer, and we will see what he will bring to this new adventure.
After COVID delays and reshooting, the film is scheduled to be released on June 30, 2023.
(featured image: Disney)
