Disney is reuniting Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg for a fifth Indiana Jones movie, due out in 2019, but is the release of the next movie in the franchise merely a cash grab?
As soon as Disney announced the return of Indiana Jones, the internet went crazy with angry speculation the studio wasn’t allowing Harrison Ford’s bones to rest.
After all, the famous actor also has already been dragged out to reprise his popular role as Han Solo.
With global profits from the Indiana Jones franchise coming in at nearly $2 billion, it’s easy to see why Alan Horn, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, told the USA Today his company was looking forward to a new movie.
Indiana Jones is one of the greatest heroes in cinematic history, and we can’t wait to bring him back.
But is this the best thing for the Indiana Jones movie franchise, let alone the country?
When Lucasfilm released Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it planned to replace Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones character with the archeologist’s son Shia LaBeof, but America wasn’t happy with the attempt.
LaBeouf went from possibly having a statue of himself in Hollywood to sitting in jail and then relative obscurity as a bizarre performance artist.
Meanwhile, Harrison Ford went on to reprise his hugely popular Star Wars character Han Solo after Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4 billion in 2012.
The move cost the aging action star a broken ankle and eight weeks’ time spent resting and recuperating at his Los Angeles home. Injuries on the set included director J.J. Abrams, who broke his back trying to help Ford off the movie set, according to Vanity Fair.
This time around, Ford, one of the world’s most iconic actors, who is now 73, will be 77 by the time the movie is released, which is stretching the character’s believability, not to mention the actor’s health.
Can anyone replace Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones?
Last year, Hollywood rumors circulated that Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt was slated to don Indy’s fedora, but Tuesday’s announcement that Harrison Ford will reprise the Indy role has seemingly destroyed that idea.
We don’t know much about the fifth edition of the Indiana Jones franchise, but we do have lots of questions.
Will the movie be a reboot, relaunch, or retelling of the original story line? Will this be Indy’s swan song, or will the aging action star be dragged into a possible sixth movie?
The Indiana Jones franchise was created by George Lucas and Spielberg while the two were vacationing in Hawaii. Now it’s looking more and more like Lucas will be absent from the next Indy iteration bringing into question the new film’s storyline.
Hollywood seems caught in a reboot rut, where it can only remake films first written 30 years ago and already seen by children who grew into adults. Hollywood’s “reboot, reuse, monetize-their nostalgia” movement is in danger of setting a dangerous precedent that will continue to make money off a generation’s youth, according to Matt Brown from Twitch.
Reboot more stuff, they like it.
Regardless of the issues another reboot brings, the newest Indiana Jones movie is sure to draw crowds, but that might be only because fans are curious about the future of their beloved character.
Please Disney, don’t mess up the classic Indiana Jones franchise.
The fifth Indiana Jones movie starring Harrison Ford is scheduled to hit theaters July, 2019.
[Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images]