During Disney's Investor Day event, the company made more announcements than any one person could reasonably keep track of. From Marvel to Star Wars to Disney+, just about anything anyone wanted to know about Disney's future projects was discussed at the event, including quite a few surprise drops out of nowhere. One of those drops was the announcement that the company was making yet another Indiana Jones film, and that the project was already in pre-production with Logan director James Mangold attached to run the project.
Perhaps the bigger news was that Harrison Ford himself would indeed be returning as Indiana Jones, making it his fifth time playing the role in a feature film. The first time Ford played the role of Indiana Jones, he was about 39 years old, and he is now 78. That's nearly 40 years of playing this one particular character, which is quite the achievement, even with the large gap of time in between the various films.
Not much is known about this latest Indiana Jones project, but it's certainly interesting to see another crack of the whip from the Indiana Jones franchise. The last film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was, as many will remember, not particularly well received. It was presumably meant to soft-reboot the franchise with an aging Indiana Jones passing the torch to his own son, who was played by Shia LaBeouf. Though the film was a financial success, it quickly became the subject of incredibly polarized reviews, and faced harsh criticism from longtime Indiana Jones fans, who viewed the film as not living up to the high bar set by the originals.
That was all the way back in 2008, and there hasn't been an Indiana Jones movie since, so it would seem the project didn't quite live up to the studio's expectations, or at least, the filmmakers decided they needed a new direction. So now this next Indiana Jones film will feature an even more aged Jones who will presumably be looking to pass the torch again, but this time in a way that audiences will hopefully appreciate more than the last go-round. In the meantime, audiences will have to wait to hear more about Indiana Jones' next big adventure from Logan director James Mangold.
Indiana Jones 5 will premiere in 2022.