Indy 5? Lucas Ponders More Archaeological Escapades

No, Dr. Jones, there isn’t a good screenplay down there. 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is still probably playing in some multiplexes, but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to talk about an addition to the series. Hey, when you sell nearly $750 million worth of tickets, people are going to talk.

ComingSoon pointed out an article in London’s Sunday Times in which Lucas, while mostly concentrating on pub for the upcoming Clone Wars series, has to deal with a question about whether there are plans for a fifth Indiana Jones movie. Here’s what he had to say:

“… it was a challenge getting the story together and getting everybody to agree on it. Indiana Jones only becomes complicated when you have another two people saying ‘I want it this way’ and ‘I want it that way’, whereas, when I first did Jones, I just said, ‘We’ll do it this way’ — and that was much easier. But now I have to accommodate everybody, because they are all big, successful guys, too, so it’s a little hard on a practical level.

“If I can come up with another idea that they like, we’ll do another. Really, with the last one, Steven wasn’t that enthusiastic. I was trying to persuade him. But now Steve is more amenable to doing another one. Yet we still have the issues about the direction we’d like to take. I’m in the future; Steven’s in the past. He’s trying to drag it back to the way they were, I’m trying to push it to a whole different place. So, still we have a sort of tension. This recent one came out of that. It’s kind of a hybrid of our own two ideas, so we’ll see where we are able to take the next one.”

Mr. Lucas, Mr. Spielberg? Here’s my suggestion: sounds like things aren’t working out so it’s best to just leave everything alone. No more Indiana Jones films. Let it be.

Look, I’m not one of the people who thought that  Crystal Skull was a total debacle. I didn’t think it was great, or even particularly good, but it was far from the worst movie I’ve ever seen and I don’t feel it totally dishonored the previous Indy movies. However, that doesn’t mean they should try again, especially if they can’t agree on what to do. I vote they quit while their ahead and just leave us with our memories of what was best about the films. I’m sure even those who hated Crystal Skull will  find their animosity towards it dimming with time. Does anyone think about Michael Jordan’s years as a Washington Wizard? Or Jerry Rice’s stint as a Seahawk? Or Brett Favre’s turn as a…wherever he’s going? No. So in time people will remember what they liked about Raiders without thinking about what they disliked about the other movies in the series. But don’t test our patience, George and Steve.