12 Perfect Casting Choices That Launched Major Film Franchises

9. Harrison Ford €“ Indiana Jones

When they were casting for Raiders of the Lost Ark, director Steven Spielberg wanted Harrison Ford to play the part of Indiana Jones. Producer George Lucas vetoed the choice, not wanting Ford to become €œthe guy I put in all my movies.€ The role was offered to Tom Selleck, but he had to turn it down due to his commitment to the TV series Magnum P.I. Spielberg, along with producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, changed Lucas€™ mind and Ford was in. Audiences and critics loved the film, which was a throwback to the old Saturday movie matinee serials. The 1984 prequel, The Temple of Doom, was able to incorporate a lot of ideas that had been discarded for Raiders. It wasn€™t as well regarded, and the film€™s violence led to the creation of the PG-13 rating. Five years later, Sir Sean Connery was added into the franchise as Indy€™s father in The Last Crusade. Rumors persisted of a fourth film being added, but didn€™t come true until 2008€™s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Ford was given an iconic look for the film, with a signature hat and leather jacket. And while he is quite at home using a pistol, his preferred weapon of choice is a bullwhip. In the classroom, he€™s something of a nebbish professor; in the field, he€™s an unquestioned man of action, who goes to great lengths to retrieve archeological treasures. Audiences got to see the elements that made him what he is in a sequence at the beginning of Last Crusade, and in greater detail in the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.