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Indiana Jones 4 is the working title of the fourth film in the Indiana Jones series, which is planned to be released worldwide on May 22, 2008. The film was in development hell since the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with various screenwriters and false production starts. Shooting finally commenced on June 18, 2007, and Harrison Ford returned to play the title role. The film will be set in 1957 and feature an older Indiana Jones.
During the late 1970s, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg made a deal with Paramount Pictures for five films about Indiana Jones. Following the theatrical release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989, Lucas decided to let the series end as he felt he could not think of a good plot device. Lucas came up with an idea for a fourth film during production of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series, and in 1992, he hired Jeb Stuart to write a screenplay. In 1995, Lucas called Last Crusade writer Jeffrey Boam back to pen another draft. Lucas came up with a MacGuffin, but Spielberg and Harrison Ford balked as it was too similar to the previous films, and spent two years reworking it into something more acceptable. Spielberg wanted to make the film because it was a chance to reunite with Lucas and Ford—with whom he had had a positive experience making the first three films. He also wanted to make the film in order to please his children, as well as the Indiana Jones fans.
M. Night Shyamalan was hired as Boam's replacement for an intended 2002 shoot, but he left because of what Ford described as "the failure of George and Steven to attend to him." Shyamalan was overwhelmed writing a sequel to a film he loved like Raiders of the Lost Ark, and admitted it was difficult to get Ford, Spielberg, and Lucas to focus. Lucas admitted he would not be able to give the project his full attention until he completed the final Star Wars film in 2005. Afterwards, Stephen Gaghan and Tom Stoppard were approached to write a new screenplay.
With a title already planned, Frank Darabont, who wrote several episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, was hired in May 2002 to write. Darabont's screenplay was set in the 1950s, after the demise of the Nazi regime, and featured cameos from Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw). It did not have Jones' son. In December 2002, Spielberg said he planned to shoot two films before filming Indiana Jones 4 in 2004 for a 2005 release. He also dismissed the possibility of shooting it digitally. All of this unravelled in February 2004 when Lucas rejected the draft for reasons unknown, although Spielberg called it the best since Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Jeff Nathanson was hired in October 2004 to write a completely new script. While shooting War of the Worlds in late 2004, Spielberg met with stuntman Vic Armstrong to discuss three stunt sequences he had envisioned. In October 2005, Lucas rejected Nathanson's draft. As 2006 began, Harrison Ford declared that if the film was not made by 2008, then the filmmakers should drop the idea altogether. Spielberg confirmed Indiana Jones 4 as his next film, calling it "the sweet dessert I give those who had to chow down on the bitter herbs that I've used in Munich", and David Koepp was hired to polish the screenplay. Koepp tried not to make his work a "fan script", in that he hoped to avoid any trivial references to the previous films, saying “That’s tempting, because you’ve seen the movie a hundred times and you know all the dialogue, but no human being remembers exactly what they said 25 years ago word for word, much less make reference to it. So you try to put aside the other movies and yet be in the spirit of them.”Wikipedia |
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