Lucas talks Indy

By Will Reynolds / June 25, 2011

Sean Connery isn't coming back for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He's part of the fabric the Indy mythology and to see him retire on the terrible movie he did is quite sad. Oh well, at least there's still Last Crusade. George Lucas has given an excellent interview to TV Guide, mainly about the legacy of San Francisco filmmakers, but he also drops some nuggets about Indy IV. Turns out the bearded one doesn't feel disappointed about failing to get Connery out of retirement:-

"... In the end, it turned out better. In the beginning, he was just in a little bit of it, and I think with the strength of Sean Connery, people would've wanted him to go all the way through the whole thing, and the story really didn't work that way. And so I think there would've been some disappointment that dropped out partway through the movie. By having somebody else fill that role, you lose him without any regret, so to speak, even though we got a great actor to play the part. And I mean, he's not his father, so it's much easier...."

In terms of the replacement character, I think that will be John Hurt playing Abner Ravenwood. That part will function is a similar way but instead link things to Karen Allen and Shia LaBeouf's characters. There's some great stories about Connery, how he used to arrange his shooting schedule and leaves every action sequence to the stunt team so he could get off early and play golf. Since this part was so small, that left Connery maximum golfing time - so my hunch is that either the role was too slight, or they tried to get him on the cheap and he just didn't think it was worth it.