It’s still about four movies away in terms of Steven Spielberg’s calendar — “The BFG” opens next week, we get “The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara” in the fall of 2017, then “Ready Player One” in early 2018 (it actually shoots first, but has heavy VFX components and moved out of the way of “Star Wars”) — but a fifth “Indiana Jones” movie is definitely happening, with writing underway, Harrison Ford locked in, and a firm release date in place for 2019.
But what happens next? Disney now own the character, after they bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas and sorted out other rights issues, and you don’t spend that kind of money just for one last movie with an iconic character. And yet Spielberg said late last year that “I don’t think anyone could replace Harrison as Indy. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen,” seemingly putting paid to rumors that Chris Pratt might have been lined up to take over. Well, this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone, but Disney head Bob Iger has confirmed that, yes, there will be further movies in the franchise after “Indy 5.”
In an extensive interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Iger responds to a question of whether an ‘Indiana Jones’ universe, as with “Star Wars,” is in the works by saying “Not like ‘Star Wars,’ no. But we hope… right now, we’re focused on a reboot, or a continuum and then a reboot of some sort.”
Iger walks it back a little bit, saying “we’ll bring him back, then we have to figure out what comes next… It’s not really a reboot, it’s a boot — a reboot. I don’t know. We got Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in the film. But then what’s the direction? I’ve had discussions about what the direction is, but I don’t want to get into it… it won’t be just a one-off.”
It’s all a bit muddled, but it does confirm that the filmmakers are planning for a longer future beyond Harrison Ford (who Steven Spielberg recently said won’t be killed off, unlike in certain other franchises…). We suspect that there’ll be some kind of torch-passing, either to Mutt (played by Shia LaBoeuf or not) or to another character, perhaps a female one, but we expect plans for the future of the ‘… Jones’ films will become more apparent between now and the release of the new film in 2019. (Note to self: pitch Disney on “Young Sallah” project).
Otherwise, Iger dances around the subject of “Rogue One” and its reshoots (“I’ve seen not only an edited picture but I’ve seen significantly more footage than was even in that picture. That’s actually going to be a fine film”), says he’s “not worried” about Johnny Depp’s alleged spousal abuse affecting the “Pirates of The Caribbean” series, and confesses that the Marvel behind-the-scenes shenanigans that saw Kevin Feige break out of the influence of Ike Perlmutter ‘rankled’ the latter. It’s a fun interview: read the whole thing over at THR.