Spielberg is unlikely to take the reins on Indiana Jones 5, but there’s a Godfather-inspired approach that could lure him and satisfy both those wanting Chris Pratt and those wanting Harrison Ford…

Another day, another rumour about the future of the Indiana Jones franchise. Following speculation last month that Disney are in talks with Chris Pratt about taking the famous role over, Deadline have started the rumour mill turning once again with news that Spielberg is interested in taking on directorial duties. Mike Fleming Jnr writes:

“It’s very early days, but my sources tell me that, assuming a script comes in to his satisfaction, Spielberg hopes to direct [the] film… Word from Spielberg’s camp is that it’s too early to determine what will happen because there is no script yet and they are just getting going.”

It’s all very vague, as such rumours often are, but you can understand where it’s come from and why it’s sparking excitement. Spielberg clearly cares deeply for the franchise, and the possibility of re-shaping it with a new actor will be an enticing one for him. Add to that the fact that Spielberg was involved in Pratt’s casting in Jurassic World, his stated dissatisfaction with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Pratt’s everyman charm, which makes him a perfect Spielberg leading man, and the idea becomes a lot more believable.

However, there are clear signs that the chances of Spielberg returning for a fifth adventure with the man in the hat (with or without Pratt’s involvement) are very limited indeed.

Indiana Jones and the Serious Spielberg

We think of Spielberg as the King of the Blockbuster, but since 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park, only four of his eleven releases have been blockbusters: Minority Report, War of the Worlds, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. Let’s look at those in more detail.

Minority Report had a blockbuster budget and an A-List star in Tom Cruise, but it was based on challenging subject material (a paranoid short story by Philip K. Dick) and owed more to film noir and pulp detective stories than Jaws or Jurassic Park. It was, Spielberg said at the time, “a gourmet popcorn movie”.

War of the Worlds brought the same budget and the same lead actor, but went even further into darkness. Released in the same year as Munich, it was thematically similar to the terrorist drama and often even more disturbing. Women are vapourised, dead bodies float down rivers in front of children, and our hero kills. Escapist entertainment this ain’t.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Tintin are the most obvious touchstones for Indy 5, and the most overtly blockbuster-y. Yet, Spielberg’s motivations for making Tintin were primarily technical (he was exploring 3D and motion capture at a time when he also looked into IMAX through the release of an 70mm Raiders of the Lost Ark), and while Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is pure escapism, it touches on darker subjects too and subtly questions the role of the matinee idol in the modern world. The shot of Indy framed against a mushroom cloud diminishes the character’s power by confronting him with a weapon more powerful, and more real, that the Ark of the Covenant.

Spielberg doesn’t simply make blockbusters any more, and he rarely goes back over old ground. Excluding the Indiana Jones franchise, he’s made only one sequel (The Lost World: Jurassic Park) and one remake (1989’s Always, which reimagines Victor Fleming’s wartime drama A Guy Named Joe). He’s had ample opportunity to return to past glories with Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and E.T. and rejected them all. Even the Indy franchise could have lost its director. Both Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Last Crusade were directed by Spielberg partly through loyalty: he had scoped out and was all set to go on Rain Main before Last Crusade emerged and he signed on out of loyalty to George Lucas and their agreement to deliver an Indy trilogy.

Lucas is now out of the picture though; he’s been pretty hands off on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and he’d likely take a similar approach with Indiana Jones 5. Spielberg’s connections with Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy may sway him, but without Lucas in place, the second half of a double act is absent, and if Ford isn’t taking the lead in front of the camera either, what would bind Spielberg to the series? Nostalgia? Love for the character? A feeling of unfinished business following the poor reception to Crystal Skull?

Those are all valid reasons, but they pale in comparison with the other films potentially on Spielberg’s slate. Military drama Thank You For Your Service is apparently still a strong prospect (and would likely star Daniel Day-Lewis), as are a remake of West Side Story, a George Gershwin biopic, a film about Montezuma, and a project about an 1885 scandal involving the Catholic Church. Oh, and he’s still got to finish off St James’ Place, start The BFG, get things rolling on a TV series based on Stanley Kubrick’s abandoned Napoleon script, and pick up again on Robopocalypse.

Spielberg’s a busy guy always looking to explore new ground. Is he really interested in revisiting a 34-year-old sandpit he’s already excavated four times? I don’t think so.

Indiana Jones and the Cursory Cameo

Let’s ignore those issues for the timebeing though and plough forward with the idea that Spielberg is genuinely interested in directing Indiana Jones 5 with Chris Pratt in the lead. Great stuff. Spielberg directs with vim and vigour, Pratt brings the charm and wit he’s infused Star Lord and Andy Dwyer with, and Indiana Jones 5 hits cinemas in a few years time to critical and commercial success. Everybody’s happy.

But where does Harrison Ford fit into all this? I’m very much in favour of Pratt-as-Indy, but Ford IS Indiana Jones, and there’s no way around that. You couldn’t simply have Pratt taking the role on with no reference whatsoever to Ford. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service nodded towards Sean Connery (albeit with a lame joke) and JJ Abrams’ Star Trek used Leonard Nimoy to create a bridge between old and new iterations. There has to be some kind of passing of the torch. I love the film, but Kingdom of the Crystal Skull simply can’t be Ford’s farewell to the character.

The question is how? Sci-fi didn’t fare well in Crystal Skull, so a Star Trek solution is out, and audiences are too sophisticated to accept an On Her Majesty’s Secret Service style gag – it wouldn’t be fitting anyway, even if it would be accepted. Ford made a cameo appearance bookending Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episode Mystery of the Blues in 1993, and that seems like a viable solution here. Ford’s Old Indy ushers in the film by telling a tale of his previous adventures headed-up by Pratt’s Young Indy. Clean, simple, and sorted quickly.

Is that what you really want though? A cameo of such haste it’s almost insulting? This is Harrison Goddam Ford! Show some respect! Ford shouldn’t have some half-baked cameo that reduces him to a sideshow attraction for nostalgic cinemagoers to come and gawp at. He deserves extended screentime and proper dramatic weight for him to show off his considerable talent and genuine love for the character. A cameo would be worse than no appearance at all. So what to do?

Indiana Jones and the Godfather Grab

What I’ve laid out here are real problems with this Spielberg/Pratt/Indiana Jones 5 story, but there is a way to wipe them all out, bring it together, and deliver a really good, different film. And that’s by ripping off one of Spielberg’s mates.

Everybody loves The Godfather Part II, and one of the reasons for that is its unique narrative structure, in which we view the past and present of the Corleone family concurrently: De Niro’s Vito in the 1920s setting up the foundations of his family dynasty and Pacino’s Michael in the 50s protecting that dynasty. It’s a great structure. So let’s thieve it.

Picture the scene: It’s 1959, two years after the events of Kingdom of Crystal Skull. With paranoia around Communism still going strong, panic escalates when the Cuban Revolution replaces President Batista with Fidel Castro. For the first time, Communism isn’t an intangible ideology in some far off land; it’s right on America’s doorstep. Plans for the operation that will become 1961’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion get underway, and the CIA bring in Ford’s Indy as a consultant on a mysterious artefact that they believe will help them in the battle with Castro. Hesitant after his struggles with the government during Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indy has another reason to take pause, a reason that takes him back to the early 30s, the beginnings of Stalin’s Russia, and his younger self, who just happens to look a bit like Chris Pratt.

It’s the early 30s. Life in America is tough. The Great Depression has brought a once prosperous nation to its knees, but young archaeologist Indiana Jones is thriving. A born survivor, he’s taken to graverobbing and what started off as a way to make ends meet has now become second nature. He has few problems with his criminality; in fact, his ‘work’ grants him passage to far off lands, and he’s taken to wearing pristine white tuxedos with a brilliant red rose peeking out of the breast pocket as a symbol of the affluence and power his profession brings him. But as rumblings of the emergence of a new tyrant in Russia grow, Indy’s criminality lands him in trouble with the government and they blackmail him into a plan to go to Siberia, depose Stalin, and prevent him from laying his hands on an ultimate weapon that would help him in his planned Great Purge.

From there, the two stories would intermingle: Pratt’s Indy in Siberia becoming a government stooge in an increasingly desperate and doomed attempt to beat back emerging Stalinism, Ford’s Indy in an America falling apart in the grip of paranoia and battling his own country’s secret service, who are looking for the self-same ultimate weapon that Stalin once sought. Karen Allen returns as Marion in the 1959 scenes, Emma Stone stars in the 30s scenes as an idealistic archaeologist who believes that the government plan is morally right, and Karl Urban and David Strathairn take on the villain roles in the 30s and 50s respectively. No reason really, it’s just I reckon Urban would make a cool Russian bad guy, and I’d like to see an old Indy take on an age and intellectual match in a nod to Raiders’ Belloq.

So why this approach? The split narrative offers Pratt and Ford equal screentime and equal drama. No-one is reduced to a cameo, Pratt has his own story to set up his Indy, Ford has his own story to wave goodbye to his. Ford’s story takes Old Indy up to the start of the 60s and the time when pulp fiction turned its attention to tech-powered spies, rather than dusty old adventurers, and therefore it represents a perfect end point for the Indy series. Pratt’s story takes Young Indy through the hubris of youth. The film is a darker effort, and his graverobbing, devil-may-care attitude is vindicated, giving him more confidence and the kind of arrogance we saw in Temple of Doom. Pratt’s story ends with him on a plane for Shanghai, placing his fedora over his eyes as he falls asleep; Ford’s story ends with him doing the same in an armchair in his suburban home. The camera moves to a writing desk, filled with books, drawings and artefacts. A manuscript lies between them. Its title: The Adventures of Indiana Jones, by Henry Jones Junior. (I know it’s sentimental, but who cares?)

I reckon Spielberg would direct because there’d be a challenge for him. Two narratives, two leads, two distinct timeframes. Yes, it’s been done before, but there are enough new horizons for him to explore here for it to be a worthwhile endeavour, and the political intrigue offers an opportunity to explore the social concerns that have always been a part of his creative make-up. He gets to say a fitting goodbye to the character, as well as Ford, and the franchise is left in good health, which sadly, it really isn’t at the moment. It’s a perfect endpoint for this phase in Indy history.

In my eyes, Pratt would then take on the series alone. His Indy would pass through the 30s and 40s. We’d see the rise of Nazism, the breakout of war and Indy’s role in it, and the return of prosperity to America. We’d fill in all the blanks in Indy’s timeline, with a film trilogy being the primary focus, and an animated series fleshing out the rest. The man in the hat is well and truly back! Hurrah!

But this is all wishful thinking and despite the fact I’ve spent a perfectly good Saturday afternoon dreaming all this up, I don’t think any of it will actually happen. Pratt will be cast sure, but Spielberg won’t take the helm and Ford will get nothing more than a five minute cameo. It’s a shame, but it’s pretty much inevitable.

Still, if characters like Indiana Jones are good for anything, it’s fantasising about what could be, and that’s why I’m desperate to see the series continue in whatever form Disney and Lucasfilm see fit. The world needs Indiana Jones. To defeat Nazis, to cause wanton destruction in locations of great historical significance, and most of all, to spark imagination and help us set sail for the places it can take us. He’s 34 years old now, he’s still young. Let’s make sure there are many more years to come.