Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will be coming to theaters on June 30, 2023. According to Entertainment Weekly, director James Mangold is dropping hints about Indiana Jones’ future.
What's Happening:
- Although director James Mangold is not going to reveal exactly what happens, he has dropped some hints on what viewers can expect.
- "I can't, because I don't want to give the movie away, But is there a relic in this movie that possesses a kind of power, or may possess a kind of power? And is it based on history and scientific speculation? Yes."
- This upcoming film will be the fifth in the Harrison Ford starring franchise and the first to be directed by Mangold. The previous films were directed by Steven Spielberg.
- This will follow the fourth film, 2008's Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which introduced Mutt, Indy’s son played by Shia LaBeouf.
- His character will not be in the new film but Mangold promised that fans would "find out what happened" to him but did not share details.
- The film opens in 1944 with a "blast of classic Indy action, me doing my very best version of Steven [Spielberg], and Harrison doing his best version of being under 40."
- The opening sequence, which features a digitally de-aged version of the 80-year-old actor, appears in the first teaser trailer that was released earlier this month.
- The film then jumps to 1969, when most of the movie takes place.
- They then had the challenge of bringing characters from that older world into a more modern time.
- "I mean, 1969 is the beginning of now, really, in terms of technology and the space race," says Mangold. "So, you have Cold Wars, nuclear power, intrigue, the lack of clear good guys and bad guys. In the same way, you have to be really considerate about how you try and transpose a fairly simplistic kind of black-hat, white-hat sensibility into a period that is more complicated. We try to exploit that by jumping forward into 1969 to a hero who is used to a black and white world, [but finds himself] in a world that has gone gray."
- We're then introduced to Helena, Indy's goddaughter, Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Mangold describes the character as "She's a daughter of a friend of Indy's, who we will also meet in the movie," he says. "Helena's gotten herself in a bit of trouble, and brings [that] to Indy's doorstep. She's a character who's a wonderful set of contradictions — charming and brilliant, but also a lot of trouble."
- Mangold knows how important Indiana Jones' character is to fans.
- "He's a guy who's never happier wearing glasses and reading a book, but somehow finds himself in these kinds of incredible situations. He uses unorthodox weapons to defend himself. He usually figures his way out of trouble with his brain, which is a very different set of circumstances than most of the heroes of our contemporary culture, who are just empowered."
- "I'm always interested in this idea of a hero at sunset," the director says. "What does the hero do when the world no longer has a place for him? I find it really interesting to try to look at classical heroes through the prism of our jaundiced contemporary attitudes."
- "I am under no illusions that my job making an Indiana Jones film was to suddenly beat the humor out of it and turn it into some kind of dirge," he says. "I think that what we're trying to do is balance both an accurate and realistic appraisal of where this character would be at this time in his life, and do that honestly, and at the same time, try and carry forward what the very title of our movie promises, which is a romp and a wonderful adventure with action and chivalry and escapes by the skin of your nose and ingenious solutions to diabolical problems. This is an Indiana Jones film."
- Harrison Ford has announced that this will be his final Indiana Jones film.