Indiana Jones 5 is coming out next summer and the fans can't wait! An eight-month-long production in Europe attracted media attention around the globe with fans showing up to watch the filming and some cosplayers even got a picture with Harrison Ford.
Ford has been playing the character since Indiana Jones and there are some great opportunities to do so.
Organized Fan Events
In 1999 Lucasfilm launched the first Star Wars Celebration in Denver and has hosted one every 1-3 years since. These conventions give fans the chance to meet the stars and watch s covering different aspects of Star Wars.
So why can't Lucasfilm host an Indiana Jones convention? It obviously wouldn't be on the scale of a Star Wars convention, but there are plenty of ionate cosplaying Indiana Jones groups out there like California Jones and Indiana Jones Brazil.
Release The Deleted Scenes
When Back to the Future was released on DVD in 2002, it came jam-packed with dozens of deleted scenes. Movie fans were hoping that the release of the Indiana Jones DVDs the following year would do the same, but to date not of them have been seen except for a few on a blooper real. Deleted scenes from the Star Wars trilogy were released in 2011, so why not Indy?
There are several known deleted scenes that fans would love to see. A deleted scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark between Sallah and a German soldier was cut despite being one of the best scenes of the movie, as reported by TheRaider.net. Fans would also love to see the deleted Pat Roach fight scene from Last Crusade.
Novels
Over a dozen Indiana Jones novels were released in the 1990s, but since then there has only been one novel and that was back in 2009. Many of the books were written by Rob Macgregor and Max McCoy and are considered some of the best Indiana Jones adventures.
Starting in 2021 an unreleased adaptation of Staff of Kings by Rob Macgregor has been released section by section on The Mystical Underground podcast, making it the first Indiana Jones content in over a decade. Novels would be a great way to give Indy some new adventures.
Comics
In the 1980s, Marvel ran The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones which ran for 34 issues in addition to the movie adaptations. Today, Marvel again holds the license but has been agonizing fans by not releasing any Indiana Jones comics since the 80s.
The ideal format of Indiana Jones comics would be the 1990s Dark Horse comics. Mini-series like Spear of Destiny and Iron Phoenix were well researched compared to Marvel series. In the spring of 2022, fans launched a Change.org campaign petitioning for new comics.
Video Games
In the 1990s, Hal Barwood wrote and directed several beloved and critically acclaimed Indiana Jones video games. In particular the point-and-click masterpiece Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Attempts at a sequel were unsuccessful but several fan projects have kept this style alive.
A new Indiana Jones game from Todd Howard was announced in 2020 and is currently in production and fans are hoping it will be the first of many. The "souls-like" style of Jedi: Fallen Order would be perfectly suited for Indiana Jones.
Revival Of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
There were no Indiana Jones films in the 1990s, but what we did get was The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. This entertaining and educational program offered a unique formula where each episode took place in a different month of young Indy's life as he interacted with historical figures.
Sadly the show was left incomplete. Future plans included the character of Belloq and other ties to the Harrison Ford films, but sadly these plans were never realized. But the show remains popular, with fan edits tieing the show to the movies appearing on YouTube's Indiana Jones Nerd.
A Show Or Film Set In The 20s And 30s
With Young Indy covering the 1908-1920 and the Indiana Jones films starting in 1935, there remains a huge chunk of Indy's life that remains unexplored on screen. These are vital years in Indy's life that would shape him into the man in the hat fans came to love.
With Ford's retirement of Indy fast approaching this would be the perfect place to launch a new actor as Indy. Anthony Ingruber portrayed the young version of Ford's character in The Age of Adeline and fans think he would be perfect to take over the mantle of Indy.
Spin-Offs For Short Round, Mutt, Or Sonja
Another direction the franchise could choose to take is ing the fedora off to another character. With Ford's suggestion that no one else could play Indy, this may be a good option for Lucasfilm to consider.
There are several popular Indiana Jones characters who deserve their own film or TV series. Short Round actor Ke Huy Quan is all grown up and returned to acting with Everything Everywhere All At Once. Mutt appeared to be set up as a possible successor in Indy 4, and the same may be true for Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Indy 5 character Sonja.
An Animated Series
How on earth have they never made an Indiana Jones animated series? Many films have received such treatment and it seems like the perfect way to keep the franchise alive on screen. But Indy deserves a hand-drawn animation style as opposed to the CGI style of The Clone Wars and Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous.
An opening title sequence-style cartoon by Patrick Schoenmaker was released on youtube in 2016 and has earned over 800 thousand views. There are some great stories that can be adapted such as Fate of Atlantis, Spear of Destiny, and the unmade comic Lost Horizons.
Indy 6 With Harrison Ford
Yes, Harrison Ford has said that he will not do another Indiana Jones film, but we can dream can't we? Some have even suggested that they should do a Godfather 2-style film with an actor like Anthony Ingruber playing the young version of Indy in certain scenes.
The filming of Indiana Jones 5 proves that another such film could be made if Ford wanted it. The actor is in spectacular shape for an 80-year-old and deep fake technology could be used for stand-ins as well. The only problem is coming up with a great script worthy of being Indiana Jones 6.
