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Indiana Jones is a film franchise that started in 1981 as a collaboration between Lucasfilm (the production company) and Paramount Pictures (the distributor). Following their acquisition of the production company in 2012, The Walt Disney Company currently owns the rights to any forthcoming films and television series.
History[]
The franchise itself is mostly based on the adventures of Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., a fictional professor of archaeology, that began in 1981 with the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. In 1984, a prequel, The Temple of Doom, was released, and in 1989, a sequel, The Last Crusade. A fourth film followed in 2008, titled The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. A fifth film is in production and is provisionally scheduled to be released in 2023. The series was created by George Lucas and stars Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.
In 1992, the franchise expanded to a television series with The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, portraying the character in his childhood and youth, and including adventures with his father. Marvel Comics began publishing The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones in 1983, and Dark Horse Comics gained the comic book rights to the character in 1991. Novelizations of the films have been published, as well as many novels with original adventures, including a series of German novels by Wolfgang Hohlbein, twelve novels set before the films published by Bantam Books, and a series set during the character's childhood inspired by the television show. Numerous Indiana Jones video games have been released since 1982.
Background[]
During 1973, George Lucas wrote The Adventures of Indiana Smith. Like Star Wars, it was an opportunity to create a modern version of the movie serials of the 1930s and 1940s. Lucas discussed the concept with Philip Kaufman, who worked with him for several weeks and decided upon the Ark of the Covenant as the MacGuffin. The project was stalled when Clint Eastwood hired Kaufman to write The Outlaw Josey Wales. In May 1977, Lucas was in Maui, trying to escape the enormous success of Star Wars. His friend and colleague Steven Spielberg was also there, on vacation from work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg told Lucas he was interested in making a James Bond film, but Lucas told him of an idea "better than James Bond", outlining the plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg loved it, calling it "a James Bond film without the hardware", and had the character's surname changed to Jones. Spielberg and Lucas made a deal with Paramount Pictures for five Indiana Jones films.
Spielberg and Lucas aimed to make Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom much darker, because of their personal moods following their respective breakups and divorces. Lucas made the film a prequel as he did not want the Nazis to be the villains again. He had ideas regarding the Monkey King and a haunted castle, but eventually created the Sankara Stones. He hired Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz to write the script as he knew of their interest in Indian culture. The major scenes that were dropped from Raiders of the Lost Ark were included in this film: an escape using a giant rolling gong as a shield, a fall out of a plane in a raft, and a mine cart chase. For the third film, Spielberg revisited the Monkey King and haunted castle concepts, before Lucas suggested the Holy Grail. Spielberg had previously rejected this as too ethereal, but then devised a father-son story and decided that "The Grail that everybody seeks could be a metaphor for a son seeking reconciliation with a father and a father seeking reconciliation with a son."
Following the 1989 release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Lucas let the series end as he felt he could not think of a good plot device to drive the next installment, and chose instead to produce The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which explored the character in his early years. Ford played Indiana in one episode, narrating his adventures in 1920 Chicago. When Lucas shot Ford's role in December 1992, he realized that the scene opened up the possibility of a film with an older Indiana set in the 1950s. The film could reflect a science fiction 1950s B-movie, with aliens as the plot device. Ford disliked the new angle, telling Lucas: "No way am I being in a Steven Spielberg movie like that." Spielberg himself, who depicted aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, resisted it. Lucas devised a story, which Jeb Stuart turned into a script from October 1993 to May 1994. Lucas wanted Indiana to get married, which would allow Henry Jones Sr. to return, expressing concern over whether his son is happy with what he has accomplished. After learning that Joseph Stalin was interested in psychic warfare, Lucas decided to have Russians as the villains and the aliens to have psychic powers. Following Stuart's next draft, Lucas hired Last Crusade writer Jeffrey Boam to write the next three versions, the last of which was completed in March 1996. Three months later, Independence Day was released, and Spielberg told Lucas he would not make another alien invasion film (or at least not until War of the Worlds in 2005). Lucas decided to focus on the Star Wars prequels instead.
In 2000, Spielberg's son asked when the next Indiana Jones film would be released, which made him interested in reviving the project. The same year, Ford, Lucas, Spielberg, Frank Marshall, and Kathleen Kennedy met during the American Film Institute's tribute to Ford, and decided they wanted to enjoy the experience of making an Indiana Jones film again. Spielberg also found returning to the series a respite from his many dark films during this period. Spielberg and Lucas discussed the central idea of a B-movie involving aliens, and Lucas suggested using crystal skulls to ground the idea. Lucas found these artifacts as fascinating as the Ark, and had intended to feature them for a Young Indiana Jones episode before the show's cancellation. M. Night Shyamalan was hired to write for an intended 2002 shoot, but he was overwhelmed by the task, and claimed it was difficult to get Ford, Spielberg, and Lucas to focus. Stephen Gaghan and Tom Stoppard were also approached.
Frank Darabont, who wrote various Young Indiana Jones episodes, was hired to write in May 2002. His script, titled Indiana Jones and the City of Gods, was set in the 1950s, with ex-Nazis pursuing Jones. Spielberg conceived the idea because of real-life figures such as Juan Perón in Argentina, who allegedly protected Nazi war criminals. Darabont claimed Spielberg loved the script, but Lucas had issues with it, and decided to take over writing himself. Lucas and Spielberg acknowledged that the 1950s setting could not ignore the Cold War, and the Russians were more plausible villains. Spielberg decided he could not satirize the Nazis after directing Schindler's List, while Ford felt "We plum[b] wore the Nazis out." Darabont's main contribution was reintroducing Marion Ravenwood as Indiana's love interest, but he gave them a 13-year-old daughter, which Spielberg decided was too similar to The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
Jeff Nathanson met with Spielberg and Lucas in August 2004, and turned in the next drafts in October and November 2005, titled The Atomic Ants. David Koepp continued on from there, giving his script the subtitle Destroyer of Worlds, based on the Robert Oppenheimer quote. It was changed to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as Spielberg found this a more inviting title which actually named the plot device. Koepp wanted to depict the character of Mutt as a nerd, but Lucas refused, explaining he had to resemble Marlon Brando in The Wild One; "he needs to be what Indiana Jones's father thought of [him] – the curse returns in the form of his own son – he's everything a father can't stand". Koepp collaborated with Lawrence Kasdan on the film's "love dialogue".
The Walt Disney Company has owned the Indiana Jones intellectual property since its acquisition of Lucasfilm, the series' production company, in 2012, when Lucas sold it for $4 billion. Walt Disney Studios owns the distribution and marketing rights to future Indiana Jones films since 2013, with Paramount retaining the distribution rights to the first four films and receiving "financial participation" from any additional films.
Films[]
| Film name | Release date | Distributor |
|---|---|---|
| Raiders of the Lost Ark | 1981 | Paramount Pictures |
| Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom | 1984 | |
| Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade | 1989 | |
| Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | 2008 | |
| Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny | 2023 |
Television series[]
- Main article: The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is the only television series in the franchise. The show was broadcast from 1992 to 1993.
Television films[]
There are four television films based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles tv series aired on The Family Channel from 1994 to 1996. No "Old Indy" bookend segments were filmed for the television films, although Sean Patrick Flanery bookended Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father.
| Film name | Release date | Distributor |
|---|---|---|
| Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies | 1994 | Paramount Communications, Inc. |
| Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock's Eye | 1995 | |
| Young Indiana Jones and the Attack of the Hawkmen | 1995 | |
| Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father | 1996 |
External Links[]
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