Updated:
Harrison Ford's reps have
denied the story, unsurprisingly. In a way though the character is kind of dead, at least for the next four years anyway as Spielberg is busy with other things. Warning! We have entered the silly season for gossip sites to invent new stories as Hollywood shuts down for the holidays and sites like
Showbiz Spy still need to fill their quota of posts. You could say I am doing the same by reciting a story that is almost sure to be false but the truth is with this post I am explaining why it might be four or five years, probably more, before we might even get a fifth
Indiana Jones film, let alone one that might kill off it's title character. First though, here's the rumour...
Harrison thinks it would be good for Indy to die and pass on his hat to his son in the next one" says an insider... George especially is resisting the notion but Steven is considering it. Funnily enough Harrison wanted the same for Han Solo in the final Star Wars but George put an end to it. This time he doesnt have all the say though.
Supposedly then when
Indiana Jones 5 eventually comes along, our title character will perish and his son (played by
Shia LaBeouf in 2008's Kingdom of The Crystal Skull) will carry on the mantle for future movies. That's all well and good, but let's consider something here for a second...
Steven Spielberg's decision to finally make his
Abraham Lincoln biopic that has been haunting him for years (excitedly now with
Daniel Day-Lewis leading) for a late 2012 release means he won't be making Indiana Jones 5 anytime in the next 18 months, at least. Then we presume in the late summer of 2012,
he will begin making Robopocalypse, his Transformers-lite robot blockbuster movie which obviously will be a more effects driven shoot than anything he has done lately and could keep him busy until 2014. Maybe later. So you are probably talking 2015 at the earliest until Spielberg is at a free point in his career to make another Indiana Jones movie. Harrison will be 74/75 by then, so just what would
George Lucas be resisting killing Indy off for? Surely he wouldn't be keeping him alive for future installments after that - Indiana Jones and the Search for the Elderly Home when he's in his 80's?
The fact of the matter is as recently as late this summer, Spielberg had eyed Indiana Jones 5 as one of his next features. He even met with
Shia LaBeouf in August and pitched him the idea they had for a fifth movie...
Theyre script writing right now, says Shia. I got called into Stevens office and he pitched a little bit to me and it sounds crazy, it sounds really cool.
... but for whatever reason Spielberg mustn't have been happy with how the film was shaping up because he instead has decided to fill his next four year schedule with two very different films. So unless George Lucas has the balls to actually make a film with actors instead of green screen like the majority of his
Star Wars prequels or his supposed '
dead Hollywood legends' feature and direct Indiana Jones 5 himself, then it's probably not worth discussing this rumour (though I of course, just did).