Who should play Indiana Jones in future movies (if any)?
Number24
NorwayPosts: 22,331MI6 Agent
First I have to say I haven't seen Indiana Jones and the Daily of Destiny. Maybe I should've done that before starting this thread, but there you go. Harrison Ford has said that movie will be the last movie with him in the role. Probably wise considering his age. So who could play Indy if more movies are made?
Some say Phoebe Waller-Bridge. I suspect that the people who say this are the same who think you should be the next James Bond. PWB is in Daily of Destiny playing another character, so obviously she can't play Indiana Jones. Maybe she could keep playing her character, but what would the movies be called then? If you want to see a woman in the same style as Indiana Jones, create a new character and a new franchise. I'll even make a pitch: Have Scarlett Johansson play a pioneer female reporter who looks for strange stories and artifacts and set it in the 1920's. I'd watch that.
Then there's a deeper question. In my opinion the Indiana Jones series works in a specific time. Young Indiana Jones starts around 1910 (I think) and Daily of Destiny is set in the early sixties. I don't think the character and the style/world of Indy would work after that, in fact I suspect the 60's is stretching it. I doubt PWB finding artifacts in 1968 or 1978 would create the right feel.
Since Indy is best set in the pre-WWII era, I don't think a non-white university history professor traveling the world in search of artifacts would work well. A lot of what he does is taking artifacts from outside of Europe and place it in museums in Europe and North America. Hm .... Maybe make another character who works for the university of Kairo or Shanghai? "It belongs in Africa!". Maybe ...
I think the only way that would work is having the same character set in the 30's and 40's is the way forward. Place the new adventures between the four first movies or even earlier.
Who could play Indy? Let me suggest:
- Bradley Cooper
- Chris Hemsworth
- Ryan Gosling
- Nathan Fillion (probably too old for a younger Indy set in the early 1930's, but Indy working for the OSS during the war would be perfect for him)
Now I've been talking for far too long. Feel free to voice your opinion.
Comments
I certainly wouldn't mind a recast Indy: I'm a Bond fan after all so don't mind recasting! But I don't know who that would be; it's a very hard task. I actually thought Pedro Pascal had the right amount of world-weary charm about him, but he's probably getting a touch long in the tooth for it.
I would perhaps do it as a Disney+ series in the Mandalorian style: a high budget serial would suit Indy I think. And maybe go a touch younger- have him just pre Raiders in the 20s or early 30s to give it a bit of separation.
Or spin off from the film: by the looks of it Indy and Toby Jones' characters are fighting to stop the Nazis stealing artefacts in WW2 in the opening of the movie; why not follow Shaw and his colleagues as they engage in Indy-style action (without Indy), battling the Nazis and going after treasures. And then that answers your issue of Indy stealing artefacts from other cultures, because then they're seeking to stop Nazis stealing them for themselves, potentially then repatriating them. I feel like then you have enough of Indy's world to make it feel like Indiana Jones, even if he can't be in it.
A high-end TV series sounds like a good idea since the Indy movies are based on mass-produced movie serials of the 30's, the TV series of the time.
Yeah exactly; I think it would be perfect. Mandalorian basically goes on a mini side quest every week, which is perfect Indy territory.
Chris Hemsworth in movies covering Indiana Jones on adventures in the early 1930's while he was struggling to become a tenured professor would be great. At the same time I'd like to see a TV series starting Nathan Fillion as Indy during WWII when he worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). This was referenced in Crystal Skull and I belive shown in the PTS of Dial of Destiny. I'd love to see that.
wasnt there already a teevee series just like that?
I've never heard of it. But if anyone knows, please post.
The answer is staring you all in the face.
Harrison Ford should play him. Or rather, the AI version of him.
Series could go on forever like that.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Didn't Young Indiana Jones take place before he started his academic career?
I absolutely don't want an AI Harrison Ford. A very good cause can be made for not re-casting at all, like Gymkata suggests.
I was thinking of movies set after Young Indiana Jones, when he was in his twenties and thirties. Jones was good, but I can't imagine he was tenured as a professor before he turned 21.
Yes, that's how I feel about it too especially as it seems to be a case of diminishing returns with these newer films.
The series is on Disney+ from the end of the month.
Bit off topic but today's Evening Standard had a review for Dial of Destiny, a bit previous as it's out late June I think. It gave it 3 stars out of 5 though reading between the lines it read more like a 2-star review, it reminded me of Empire magazine's review of Die Another Day which give it the obligatory four stars but progressively slagged it off in the copy. It did say it was better than the last one, which isn't saying much. Main problem- for me - is that it says the script isn't that witty. Really, the bits I like from Raiders and Last Crusade are the jokes. Not hard, is it - I mean, The Big Bang Theory does that stuff every episode but a mega budget much anticipated Indy film - like a Bond film really - struggles with all that. It's like movies occupy a different universe to TV.
Twitter doesn't seem that stoked on it, esp one scene released which owes a lot to the Tut chase scene in Octopussy.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Weirdly the Guardian review sounds like they enjoyed it, but then it gets three stars for some reason. I’m not sure the star rankings quite join up with these reviews.
The I gave it 4 stars this morning, but Christina Newland [reviewer] counters that by stating "much of the film hinges on how much you like and believe in the relationship between Helena and Indy, wherein she serves as a sort of Marion (Karen Allen) without the romance - fighting and quipping alongside Indy." So while Wiki's credits for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny doesn't mention Phoebe Waller Bridge as a script doctor or anything, this does sound remarkably like the one-night-no-romance-stand between Craig and Ana De Armas in NTTD. You don't suppose the filmmakers of this one paid a visit to the cinema recently? Newland also states: "it feels like a loving coda... paying homage to a few of the most memorable moments in Raiders... For those of us who first loved Indiana Jones, there's something moving about watching the older Harrison Ford make his way through one last adventure." No disrespect to Miss Newland, a very thorough critic, but her personal online bio states she is 30 years old (in 2021) and that's way too young to be one of 'those of us' who properly 'first loved' and remembered Indiana Jones and Raiders in 1981.
You don’t have to have been there to grow up with Indy.
True, but her perception of the movies would be different, I feel.
But not lesser.
Never wrote that.
No actor immediately springs to mind, but in the same way I would like a Brit to play Bond, I would like an American to play Indy.
What about an Irishman? Colin Farell has been mentioned.
I can see it now:
Indiana John Joe Jones and the Four-Leaved Shamrock. ☘️
I may have mentioned that I'm not from the US, but at least to my ears he can do a good American accent.
Yes, I'm sure he can. I was just being facetious as a fellow occupant of the Emerald Isle. 😉
🤣🤣🤣
Speaking of Farell: if you haven't seen "Banchees of Insherin" (spelling?) yet I highly encourage all of you to rectify that mistake as soon as possible!
He's surely a bit too old to be Indy? I know that sounds odd given Ford is 80!
It's an odd one. The role has always been Ford's. The era is usually wartime and Nazis. It is kind of limiting, it needs the Lucas Spielberg touch perhaps because I don't recall many spin offs in the 80s. You could say the same for Star Wars - without the magic touch it can't quite happen whereas with the Bonds there so many imitators.
Though set in wartime usually, they don't seem period pieces so much because of the locations - dusty bookshop Harvard or wherever Indy studies, then off to the Middle East. We don't see Indy in a 1940s cinema watching Gable and Lombard on the screen, or hear him listening to Glen Miller. I'm not crazy about Crystall Skulls doing Rock around the Clock or the new one going all Carnaby Street.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Colin Farell is 46, so he may be too old. It depends on if they go for Indy in 1928 or 1941, I think.