Rumors regarding a fifth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise have been circulating for quite a while now, but Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy recently offered some official confirmation that Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones (Jr.) will be back on the big screen at some point.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Kennedy explained that the Indiana Jones franchise is one of the big “prizes” to come out of Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012.
According to Kennedy, another Indiana Jones movie “will one day be made inside this company. When it will happen, I’m not quite sure. We haven’t started working on a script yet, but we are talking about it.”
Kennedy reiterated that a new film featuring the adventurous archeologist famously portrayed by Harrison Ford isn’t happening anytime soon, considering the studio has yet to develop a script for the project. Still, Kennedy’s position as executive producer on all four of Steven Spielberg’s previous Indiana Jones films makes her one of the most in-the-know people at Lucasfilm when it comes to the popular character.
As far as what form a new Indiana Jones will take, rumors have pegged Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt as a potential successor to Ford in the franchise, though nothing is official at this point given the lack of a script, director, or pretty much anything involved in development of the film.
The last film in the franchise, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was released in 2008 and earned more than $786 million in worldwide ticket sales, making it the highest-grossing film in the series. While it was generally well-received by critics, audiences had a mixed reaction to the film, resulting in just a 54% “Fresh” rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
