Things are suddenly moving pretty fast for Indiana Jones 5. After Harrison Ford was spotted in the U.K. last week and rumors began to fly, sources close to the production told Deadline that the new movie will begin filming this week. Filming will begin at Pinewood and other select locations.
Ford will reprise his role yet again as archaeologist, adventurer and professor Indiana Jones in this untitled fifth installment of the franchise. According to Deadline, the movie will be directed by James Mangold — best known for Logan — rather than the franchise creator Steven Spielberg. It will also star Mads Mikkelsen, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Boy Holbrook, Shaunette Renée Wilson and Thomas Kretschmann. Notably, composer John Williams is returning for this installment, but many other aspects of the movie have changed.
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For one thing, Indie is now in the hands of Disney since the company has acquired Lucasfilm. Producers include Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Simon Emanuel. Indiana Jones 5 has supposedly been in the works for many years, though it’s not clear how long this current version has been in development.
Naturally, the plot details of this movie are being kept as secretive as possible. Deadline notes that the movie is rumored to be shooting at Bamburgh castle, but that does not necessarily tell us much. Another rumor indicates that the movie may be set during the “space race” of the 1960s, when both the U.S. and Russia were battling to reach the moon first.
Released in the 1980s, the original Indiana Jones trilogy was set in the 1930s, while most of Europe was engaged in World War II. The franchise jumped ahead in 2008 with the belated sequel Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which was set in 1957. Here, the Cold War was the backdrop as Indie and his team trotted around the globe.
Another time skip seems inevitable as Ford himself is now 78 years old. The actor had previously said he would be willing to reprise his role again only if it did not take years to develop the movie, which it did. Plans to replace Ford with a younger character — perhaps his son played by Shia LaBeouf — have reportedly been scrapped.
Whatever Indiana Jones 5 holds, it is unlikely to be the character’s last trip to the theater. According to a 2017 report by ComingSoon.net, Disney CEO Bob Iger said at the time: “Right now, we’re focused on a reboot, or a continuum and then a reboot of some sort. Well, we’ll bring him back, then we have to figure out what comes next. That’s what I mean. It’s not really a reboot, it’s a boot — a reboot. I don’t know. We [got] Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in the film. But then what’s the direction? I’ve had discussions about what the direction is, I don’t want to get into it. I don’t think it reaches the scale of the universe of Star Wars, but I see making more. It won’t be just a one-off.”
Indiana Jones 5 is currently filming in the U.K. The movie is tentatively scheduled to premiere some time in 2022.
