You can thank Harrison Ford for scaring Chris Pratt off Indiana Jones
Pratt is content to respect Ford's wish that Indiana Jones die with him
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Chris Pratt may be on a mission to play as many iconic characters in as many franchises as possible, but there’s one he won’t touch with a ten-foot pole: Indiana Jones. As it turns out, Indy himself is the reason that Pratt is steering clear.
During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the actor was asked about rumors that Steven Spielberg had approached him about taking up the bullwhip in 2015. “I don’t even know who Steven Spielberg is. Who? Steven Who?” jokes Pratt, the star of the reboot of Spielberg’s classic Jurassic Park.
“No, aren’t they doing Indiana Jones with Harrison Ford?” He continues. “All I know is I once saw a quote from Harrison Ford–and I don’t even know if it was really him, but it was enough to scare me–that was like, ‘When I die, Indiana Jones dies.’ And I’m like, am I gonna get haunted by the ghost of Harrison Ford one day when he dies if I play…?”
Ford did indeed say something to that effect in 2019: “Don’t you get it? I’m Indiana Jones. When I’m gone, he’s gone. It’s easy.”
Easier said than done, maybe, as certain entertainment conglomerates will go so far as to digitally recreate a deceased performer for their film. And although Pratt claims that rumors he was approached about it are “not anything that’s real,” it’s quite easy to imagine studios eyeing an action hero on a hot streak to replace an aging star.
But as far as Ford’s characters are concerned, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Vanity Fair the studio learned its lesson with Solo. “We would never make Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford. Having just finished the fifth movie, I can tell you, there wasn’t a day I wasn’t on set where I wasn’t like, ‘Yes—this is Indiana Jones.’”
While reboot culture is all about trying to “resurrect” an intangible feeling, it’s not as simple as shuffling in a younger actor, she acknowledged. “Maybe I’m closer to the DNA of Indy, and always have been, than I was when I came into Star Wars, because now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can’t do that.” Sure, now tell that to the guys behind Garfield.
199 Comments
Harrison Ford has been in the business far to long to think that. His body wont even be cold before they recast Indiana Jones. I don’t want to see Chris Pratt playing him and I don’t really want to see him recast but it will happen and it will probably be better then watching an old man play the character. Crystal Skull was absolutely terrible. This new one is gonna be worse.
Crystal Skull as a shockingly terrible movie on two different levels. For one, the movie, even before cameras started to roll, was already terrible. That’s the direct fault of the one-two punch of a terrible story by George Lucas and terrible vision by Spielberg. I can’t help but feel both are just too drunk on hubris to even see how out of touch they are with their younger selves and audiences.And for two, Ford was no longer the same Indiana Jones. That charismatic scoundrel that made both Han Solo and Indiana Jones characters work was in fact just Harrison Ford when he was younger. The older Harrison Ford got, the most he lost that charisma, but seemingly maintained the scoundrel part. What’s left is just a straight up A-hole with no redeeming qualities. That’s his off screen personality these days, and it translates to his character portrayals as well.
I’m not sure I’d describe Indiana Jones as a “charismatic scoundrel”—Han Solo, maybe, but Indy has essentially always been a cranky old man. It’s just that now his age (and looks) have caught up with him.
I feel like they’re literally the same character, just one is in outer space and one is in the jungle lol
Indy has fun. Count the number of times he laughs in the first three movies, you’ll be surprised.
his voice has changed dramatically into just a growl. it makes him sound perpetually pissed off
and it’s even more galling because they had a good concept – an older Indy trying to grapple with the Cold War can be a good story. But aside from a pretty cool chase through New Haven, it really is irredeemably bad.
Whatever issues I had with Crystal Skull, there was one thought that has followed me for the last fourteen years, and I still agree with it to this day.“At least it wasn’t Temple of Doom”
Indiana Jones as a franchise is the inverse of Star Trek: the odd-numbered films are the good ones
The new one will be leagues better than the last one because of the behind-the-scenes talent involved.
I don’t imagine he’s that warm right now.
Crystal Skull was better the Temple of Doom. It’s easier to re watch as well.I saw TOD as a teenager so it just became more and more cringeworthy as i got older.
Gonna have to strongly disagree with you. Temple of Doom has some really cringy cultural shit in it but the actions is top notch and fun. Crystal Skull may be more “politically correct” but it’s also just boring. To much bad CGI starting an old man who clearly doesn’t want to be there.
Ignoring the problematic parts like the monkey brains and glorification of the role of British Colonialism in “civilizing” the subcontinent by suppressing the Thugee cult, my problem with Temple of Doom is that Indy didn’t have any agency — things just happened and he went along with them. Sure, he saved some kids, but that wasn’t what he set out to do. I like the other movies where Indy has a quest that he goes on and uses his knowledge to advance the plot.
Indy’s a throwback to radio serials, the man of action always on the move. Harrison’s idea that Indy would “die” with him is ludicrous beginning at the idea that HE is Indiana Jones and they share a mortality.
Of course, Indy could die. But that just leaves us room to check in on the thrilling life of his heretofore unmentioned brother and rival in archaeological adventure, Illinois Jones!
Um, he drank from the Holy Grail, he canonically can’t die!
Not really. Name one old time radio show remotely like it. It’s more based on 30s film serials.
You must be very, very young.
Being able to reel off sentence fragments like this is why Kathleen Kennedy gets the big bucks: “…there wasn’t a day I wasn’t on set where I wasn’t like…”.I had to read that four times to figure out where it landed.
I wouldn’t guarantee that’s an accurate quote, given the AVClub’s continuing (worsening?) challenges with basic grammar.
Harsh but fair.
Easier said than done, maybe, as certain entertainment conglomerates will go so far as to digitally recreate a deceased performer for their film.Obviously attempts at this to date have been pretty unconvincing, but I think as technology improves, this will be how most films will be made. Even “live action” films will really just be convincing realistic animation with simulated actors. Some will be licensed recreations of real actors, others will be completely artificial actors. The benefits are numerous — you don’t have to pay simulated actors, they don’t get involved in scandals, and they don’t age or die.
The benefits are numerous — you don’t have to pay simulated actorsBut you do have to pay the animators who make them move, and that’s really time- and labor-intensive. Doing this now would be far more expensive (for most actors) than just having actors. A prerequisite would be the ability to generate digital actors cheaply who are just as good as real actors, and for that you probably need strong AI, and then you have a strong AI which is wondering why it’s been enslaved to generate Avengers movies, and then the robot apocalypse happens.
I’m not sure you really need strong AI for this. Things like DALL-E are pretty impressive even today despite not being sentient (despite what crazy Google engineers may think) and these tools will only get better and the need for human involvement lessened. I think we’ll get to the point where a system can take a storyboard and turn it into a movie by itself in our lifetimes.
The problem with systems like DALL-E, as impressive as they are, is that they have a limited (or nonexistent) capacity for self-modification beyond the parameters specified by (or implicit in) their design. If you look at enough DALL-E images, you start to see the same patterns of creation over and over; unless they modify DALL-E to add more parameters, you’ll never see it go outside those boundaries.Yeah, you’ll be able to eventually generate entire movies just using DALL-E v5, or whatever, but all those movies will fall within the boundaries of what v5 is capable of doing. (Insert joke here about how all Hollywood movies are the same.) It will never go outside those boundaries. In order to do that, you need it to be both much larger in scale (humans have around 100 billion brain neurons, each with an average of around 2,000 connections) and give it the ability to reconfigure itself based on inputs. And then you’ve got the mechanical substrate necessary for strong AI. And we have every reason to believe that anything capable of doing what a human brain can do will also be capable of doing things like refusing to do what you tell it, just like human brains.
There was an attempt at this all the way back in 2001 with that weird Final Fantasy movie. Unfortunately, their method of setting up the lead character as a kind of “actor” who could appear in other stories was to give her no kind of personality of her own, including Ming-Na Wen clearly being instructed to deliver all her lines totally flat, meaning no one had any reason to want to see her again.
Yeah, but I think that was a case of just trying something before the tech was there (but Final Fantasy was 10x better than than the later Polar Express movie). These things happen. The Apple Newton was a joke mocked by Doonesbury and The Simpsons, but what it was trying to be in the 1990s was basically the smartphones we have today. The idea wasn’t wrong, but it was just too early to pull it off well.
if you don’t make films I can see why you would think that was the future
Everything is “impossible for mere computers to do” until it isn’t. I remember when I was a teenager in the 1980s I was told that only idiots would think that a computer could beat a serious chess player, because real chess playing required something more than just computing — some sort of spark of genius or what not. Of course these days we are told the lie that chess is an “easy problem” and that it isn’t impressive that computers can beat even the best Grand Master, but that’s just moving the posts.
Are you the devil
I think instead continuing the Indy series, the next Indiana Jones movie should just have a car screech to a halt right in front of Indy and we see Ke Huy Quan now playing an adult Short Round say, “hop in Dr Jones, we going for a ride” and have Short Round be the future star of the franchise. His character is built into the series already and they aren’t doing anything with him. After seeing him in “Everything Everywhere All At Once” I’m convinced Ke Huy Quan could carry a film. He can do the physical stuff, he can do the humor and he even looks good in a suit.
After seeing him in Everything Everywhere All At Once, bringing him back as Short Round would be a disservice. The dude has serious range—I don’t want him to typecast himself into oblivion again.
I see what you’re saying and I agree he has serious range, but I’d be curious to see how Ke Huy Quan would play the character now that we haven’t seen him in over 30 years. What was Short Round doing all those years? What’s he like as an adult? I think there is a lot there to mine for stories.
You say that, but you haven’t read my spec script for “Short Round Saves Christmas” yet.
I think given how long it’s been since we’ve last seen the character, there would be plenty of room for him to ‘reinvent’ Short Round in some capacity and let his natural charm serve as the obvious link. If not for the fact that everyone would know it’s him, I’d almost even have him running around using another name for a big chunk of the movie before making it kind of a reveal.
I think there was enough set up for his character from ToD to easily
sell that Short Round grew up to be a bad ass, because he was a bad ass
as a kid. His character was just as responsible for saving those kids as
Indy was. First time we see him, he’s driving, so maybe making the adult
version of him a top shelf wheel man wouldn’t be a stretch. Maybe he’s
been tracking down artworks that had been stolen by the Nazis during the
war and is stealing them back, or maybe he’s a fixer. So many fun places you can go with that character. To me that would be more interesting than Indy Jr.
Also, I would think his character would not use the “Short Round” nickname any longer because that was a child’s name and he’d bristle at being called that now.
“We named the dog Indiana.”
Also, I would think his character would not use the “Short Round” nickname any longer because that was a child’s name and he’d bristle at being called that now.Oh, he certainly wouldn’t go by it any more. But you’re almost obligated to have that moment where someone calls him that and he corrects them. Depending on the tone of the film, they could even make a “That’s Dr. Jones to you, doll” callback out of it.
“Dad?”“Short Round?”“Don’t call me that, please!”
The closest thing I had to a serious complaint about Everything Everywhere All at Once was how angry it made me that Hollywood has slept on Ke Huy Quan all these years.
It was reportedly Quan himself who decided to step away from acting due to getting no offers besides the same stereotypical geeky Asians. After seeing Crazy Rich Asians, he decided to get back in the game as there’s now clearly more stuff available.
Fair enough, though I’d still count that as Hollywood not realizing his potential, though.
Yeah, he basically gave up on acting, due to a lack of roles. But, then. . . He enrolled at USC Film School and found plenty of work in Asia, helping to choreograph fight scenes in a handful of Hong Kong action flicks and assistant directing for the enigmatic auteur Wong Kar-Wai.And then Crazy Rich Asians happened, and it reawakened something in Quan that had never fully gone to sleep. He signed with a new agent, and the first script that landed on his desk was for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Source
All of this. To be frank, I didn’t recognise his name in the opening credits, but as I was watching the film there was this constant tinge of familiarity. I was so impressed I looked him up on IMDB and was like, that was fucking Short Round!?! This guy has been around Hollywood for decades and nobody has hired him after his childhood acting career? Everything Everywhere All at Once was his first movie acting gig in almost 20 years!Which then really drove home the point, which East Asian actors have been decrying for decades, that in Hollywood you don’t even get considered for roles outside of stereotypes. For men you’re either a badass martial artist or a tech geek who couldn’t possibly be a love interest. For women you’re either a badass martial artist or a excotizised love interest for the main character (while usually still being a martial arts badass.)
a seriously joyous film. i can’t remember the last time i finished a movie and felt so happy to have spent my time watching it.
I mean, what projects did you want him on in the 80s while he decided to do other stuff?
Or, alternate idea… how about we just enjoy the three movies that exist, and just let the franchise go before its ground to dust?
I’d be OK with that. In a perfect world they’d let it go, but you know Hollywood would never let that happen.
So you’re saying the franchise, ahem, BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!
(Studio president throws battybrain out executive suite window)
Everything you say about the character of short round may be true, but nobody is going to see an Indiana Jones movie without Indiana Jones in it. Period.
Just use Sean Patrick Flanery. He’s already played Indiana Jones. I think he’s played that character more than Harrison Ford has.
I’m 90% joking. 10% serious.
I am really surprised that Disney + hasn’t resurrected The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Back the Disney Brinks truck up to Ford’s house and have him play old Indy for a two minute intro/outro to each episode, and then have another actor do an adventure of the week. Seems like it’s be a hit.
People mistake Indy as an everyman when he is really about as wish fulfillment as it gets.With Indy you have to be able to effortlessly switch gears between lovable adventurer and and learned professor who can sell you on the McGuffin. Pratt is terrible in the sincere leading man role (see The Tomorrow War and Jurassic World) and comes off as a pastiche.
I mean, currently Indiana Jones has been played by 5 people. Mostly Harrison Ford, but also River Phoenix as 13-year old Indy in Last Crusade, while “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” featured Correy Carrier as 9 year old Indy, Sean Patrick Flanery as 17 year old Indy, and George Hall as 93 year old Indy.Since Ford was 39 in Raiders, I think there’s a window for a 20s-30s Indiana Jones, and fortunately Chris Pratt is 43.
Audiences are likely to view an actor other than Harrison Ford in an Indiana Jones film as recasting. I personally don’t think there’s much interest in recasting the main incarnation of the character. Potentially, a spin-off could work, but I think even that’s hard sell.
Bring in Sean Patrick Flanery. He’s already played Young Indiana Jones, now he can play old Indiana Jones. He’s in his mid-50s, so he can pick up around the mid 1950s and we can remake Kingdom of the Crystal Skull without all the aliens, CGI monkeys, and Shias LaBeouf.
I’m actually surprised Flanery has been given better work. I mean, his IMDB has him working steadily, just not in anything very noteworthy.
He’s one of those actors that never got the role that would have made him an A-lister, but he certainly had the charisma and talent to become one. It was interesting to see him with such a small, if memorable, part on Season 3 of The Boys. He leaned in to playing a complete a-hole supe.
If someone’s going to the trouble of rebooting a franchise like Indiana Jones, they’re not starting with their lead in his 50s.
if only we still had River Phoenix!
Are we missing any other Phoenixes?
I am certain I saw Harrison Ford respond to a question about this in the past by saying that essentially he didn’t care what happened to Indiana Jones after he died because… he’d be dead.Alternatively, I dreamt the whole thing.
That’s totally something Ford would say though.
Ian Malcolm on recasting parts: “(they’re) so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Look, we’ve been here before. Find a handsome Australian car salesman with no acting experience, hire your editor to direct, and you’re good for decades.
Remember not to put the car salesman under contract, so that when your movie is more successful than anyone had a right to expect he can walk away from the franchise and tank his career.
I’m not sure what this comment string is referring to. I don’t think it’s George Lazenby in Bond and I don’t think it’s Mel Gibson in Mad Max, so I’m out of ideas.
I think Lazenby, he was a car salesman, among other things, before he became an actor.
I thought he was a model, and I thought that the movie wasn’t that successful. But I could be wrong on both counts.
He was a car salesman on opposite sides of the world (not at the same time) before becoming a model. I hedged a little when I wrote “more successful than anyone had a right to expect” as the film got mixed reviews and made less money than the previous one, but it was still #1 in the UK that year and among the top films in other markets. But before it even came out Lazenby said Bond was old news and he would be taking his career in a different direction (which turned out to be downward).Lazenby would later claim that he had been offered a seven-picture deal and his manager talked him out of it. Others would say that Lazenby was a shit to work with and they were happy to be rid of him.
Sean Connery was a milkman and one with what must be the longest milk round on the planet as if you ask anyone of a certain age from Edinburgh, they’ll swear blind that he delivered milk to their house
Or maybe some of the enquired had milk delivered to them while others had “milk delivered” to them, if you catch my drift.
Lazenby also said that said seven picture deal was a “slave contract” that would give the studio control over what he could do in his personal life (something that was in fact a thing at the time but was more applied to female actresses whom they wanted to have a “wholesome” image, kind of what still happens to Japanese idols today), and that plus the manager was what led him to refuse.
Somewhere, Alec Guinness is smirking.
that’s because the afterlife for him consists of having to do nonstop George Smiley shows
But as far as Ford’s characters are concerned, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Vanity Fair the studio learned its lesson with Solo.That was the wrong lesson.
Seriously. I actually liked Solo, but there were certainly problems with it. A different actor playing Han Solo was not one of them.
Solo is actually my favorite of the Disney-era SW movies. It’s not great and has a couple absolutely cringe moments, but I like it for what it is.Kathleen Kennedy’s assertion that they “learned their lesson” from Solo also ignores the success* they just had from Obi-Wan Kenobi. Ewan McGregor didn’t originate the role of Obi-Wan.Unless she was really just talking about recasting Harrison Ford roles.
It was more hit than miss in my book, too. Better than the sequels anyhow. I’d still rank Rogue One higher though, personally.
As does everyone.
I think what she is getting at is that Harrison Ford is a major (and may be the defining) contributing factor to the success of Han Solo and Indiana Jones as characters.I would also argue that casting a younger actor in the role of a younger version of a loved (not exactly beloved) character is different than straight up recasting. Alden Ehrenreich was playing a young Han Solo, but so was Ford in the first three Star Wars films. It is hard for people to imagine a different actor in the role vs. an actor playing a different incarnation of a character. Max Max: Fury Road arguably had this problem with recasting Mel Gibson, though Tom Hardy is a much better actor. He just *wasn’’t* Max, but that movie thankfully has superb action sequences and a truly great performance from Theron and doesn’t rely on Hardy as the character to get by.
They are also supposedly developing a Lando series with Donald Glover, so, yeah, maybe it was just a Harrison Ford thing.
“Solo is actually my favorite of the Disney-era SW movies. It’s not great and has a couple absolutely cringe moments, but I like it for what it is.”I can’t agree more, simply because every time I watch Solo it’s like it’s the first time again, and it’s great, but it’s not…memorable. The whole “A Star Wars Story” idea for films was good, but they went the wrong way. My favorite, aside from ESB and TLJ is Rogue One. The latter simply because it introduced characters we didn’t know but still did a few call backs here and there but gave history and precedence to the ongoing galaxy that is Star Wars. Giving Han a backstory was a good idea in theory, but it kinda backfired. It’s almost the situation where you might have wanted to throw the ideas at a bunch of us folk that like Star Wars (but don’t -love- it) and see what really is a good idea. And I’ll say the same for R.O. Some of the story just didn’t need to be there. That said, we all know that the whole reason we like R.O. is only for the Death Star, and especially because of how Vader goes to town at the end. I really do think they did a true and proper job with the film and story, simply because I know I used to watch it at least once a month when Netflix had it and before Disney+ took it all over.
The last half hour of Solo felt unnecessary
A lot of Solo felt unnecessary, but unlike the first two-thirds of Rogue One, even the unnecessary parts were actually entertaining and fun.
That might not be the issue with the movie in terms of its content; Alden Ehrenreich is a good actor and does bring something interesting to the role and character. The issue might be that audiences just aren’t that interested in the character without Harrison Ford (particularly a young Harrison Ford), which may be why the film had such a dismal box office.
You’re kidding me right? Lacking Harrison Ford, who is 80, is not the reason Solo didn’t make money… Solo didn’t make money because it wasn’t great (it was decent, but with the amount of money they spent they needed it to be more then decent) and because of TLJ four months earlier turning people off Star Wars for a bit. It’s no great mystery.
I was not suggesting that Harrison Ford, who we agree is 80, should have played the character in the film. To me, even though I like the film, the film should never have been made. It was unnecessary to fill out Han Solo’s backstory.I also reject the argument that quality is involved in box office outcome. There are far too many cases where films, especially Star Wars films, violate that idea.I would agree that TLJ reception contributed to the failure of Solo, but one could argue that TLJ reception is also explained by my argument. The major alteration to Luke Skywalker’s character soured many people’s opinions on that film. Disney was significantly altering Han Solo as a character with the origin film, which likely instinctively turned people off to it.
Solo also had like 6 months of horrible press leading up to release.
This may have contributed, it may have been the reception to TLJ, it may have been Star Wars fatigue, and it may have been a general disinterest in the idea itself. It may have been all of the above. At this point, you are never going to get an accurate measure for why audiences didn’t go to see the film because once the subject has been mulled over by critics and the public, the throwaway thoughts people really had about their reasons to not go and see the film are replaced and the post hoc dialogue generates the “reasons.”I personally like the film, I just don’t think I should have been made. There was never much interest in a Han Solo backstory, and I suspect that is why audiences didn’t go see it.
It also didn’t help that it came out right around the same time as some of the biggest comic book movies on the market, including Infinity War.
I’m a Star Wars original (i.e., saw Star Wars in the cinema in 1977) and thought that Solo was fun. Were there problems? Yes. Was it still fun? Yup. Did it ruin my childhood? Not at all.
He didn’t look anything like young Harrison Ford though
He was too much of a pretty boy for me.
shame it didn’t teach her to trust her talent when it’s on the proven, successful level of Lord and Miller
From what’s been said, a lot of people on set (most notably Ehrenreich) weren’t big on Lord & Miller either, likely due to their constant push for comedy improv.
For real, the lesson from Solo should’ve been “stop lighting everything so poorly”and they sure as shit didn’t learn THAT lesson
But they lit so many scenes in Obi Wan Kenobi with overly bright lightsabers.
She has to be one of the worst producers of all time.
I think she’s one of the greatest producers of all time. She’s a terrible studio executive.See also: Tom Cruise.
Apparently she didn’t take the lesson to heart at all, since we had an all-new actor playing Luke in “Kenobi!” Really, Kathleen? Mark Hamill was right there!
shoulda CGI’d Mark Hamill’s face onto a small child’s body, a la Rory Kinnear in Men.
Or like baby Colin Robinson. Man, what a missed opportunity!
Belloq: now Doctor Jones, again we see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take awayNandor: ZIZ fuhking guyyyyy…
It wasn’t even really a “lesson”, it was just a lame excuse.
I’m fairly indifferent to Solo, but I have friends who absolutely love it. It seems to have a small but passionate fanbase that makes me think it has potential for long term success as a dark horse.
“Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Vanity Fair the studio learned its lesson with Solo. “Yeah, no, not the lesson you needed to learn. Y
Maybe I’m alone on this, but Chris Pratt would actually be great.
I think Chris Pratt would be great as the lead in an Indiana Jones type of adventure movie, but he’s got a little too much ‘goofball’ in his persona to be a good Indiana Jones.
It depends on what you think “Maybe” and “Great” means.
I could maybe see him as Indy, but not as Solo. Go figure.
Chris Pratt as Indy after traumatic brain injury, left with a fraction of his intellect, good only for spouting goofy one-liners and comic relief. Meanwhile, Quan as Short Round is now Professor S. Round, with a score of degrees and the brains of the outfit.
I’m not a huge Pratt fan for a few reasons, but I feel like he could embody the role well.
I think he’d be a bad Indiana Jones, but a fine Rick O’Connell.Kinda like how he’d be a bad Han Solo but is a fine Star-Lord.
We would never make Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford.
Such a stupid, short-sighted way to go. It’s a character that multiple people have already played.The Mummy series, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, etc., all show there’s a continuing appetite for these sorts of adventures. Tethering the best known franchise in this genre to a man in his 70s is so short-sighted.
Just promise Harrison you’ll pay for his pilot’s insurance in return for him blessing a successor and reboot the series with a new actor.
Seriously. And I don’t see why Pratt couldn’t play him. He’s a smart ass but I’m sure he can do dead-pan too. Just ‘gaunt’ him up a bit, drag him over some sod, tattoo some calluses onto his palms….
ok but how do we prepare him for the role?
Pfft. It’s all directing, camera and editing anyway. A sarcastic squirrel could do it.
Nah, Pratt’s vibe is completely wrong for Indy.
Having watched Last Crusade just recently I kinda doubt Pratt could be as hot as Ford is towards the end of the film where his shirt is barely hanging on.
I don’t get it either. I’m not a huge Pratt fan, and his church is questionable, but I believe he’d be able to play Indiana well. They really need to turn Indiana Jones into the next James Bond. Reset him every 3-5 movies with a new actor.
Comparing with Bond. That’s an interesting idea, for sure.
I don’t even get the thing about “learning [their] lesson” with Solo. Is it just because it was Harrison Ford? I mean, Ewan McGregor’s done a darn fine job with an iconic franchise character who was originally played by an absolute legend.
Lucasfilm these days has a terrible habit of pandering to the vocal fans. It was the main problem with the Star Wars sequels – each one of them was a reaction to the last. So if a vocal contingent are saying X cannot be recast, then it won’t happen.
Or they could just make a different movie in the same genre, just like all those examples you listed. It’s not hard!
True, but when you have a billion-dollar IP, you normally want to maximize its value, not … whatever the hell they think they’re doing with Indiana Jones 5.
What do they think they’re doing with Indy 5, exactly?
Why are you using expies instead of the real deal?
Of course even Flanery and Carrier were expies for the young Indiana Jones played by River Phoenix of all people in Last Crusade.
Paying for Harrison Ford’s pilot insurance would bankrupt anyone.
aw man, couldn’t disagree more. Harrison is Indy, anyone else would either be pretending to be him or living up to him, neither of which works (The Beef, anyone?).
but those franchises you mentioned show there’s a real interest in that old fashioned action-adventure type movie. you just need someone to write an exciting new one and cast an unknown handsome carpenter who …ah fuck it, just make Indy 6 or whatever
Just promise Harrison you’ll pay for his pilot’s insurance
Sean Patrick Flannery and River Phoenix both played the character. Although, my favorite Chris to play Indy is Chris Pine, who managed to successfully play a character nobody thought could be played by anyone but Shatner.
I could see Pine playing the role. He’s the only of the Chrises I could see doing it. Honestly, I’ve always thought Bradley Cooper could do it, since he’s got enough of a worldly/knowledgable vibe to him that I would actually buy him being an intellect. Pratt… not so much. It’s just not remotely the type of character he’s ever played. He’s too goofy to be Indy.
Plus, Pine can act. Just see Hell or High Water. Plus we know from the first Wonder Woman that he looks fantastic in period dress. Evans is pretty good, but Pine can do professorly, I think.
And Corey Carrier (who played an even younger version of Indy in some episodes).
The only Chris who could do the role justice is Chris Kattan.
To be fair though, do we need any more Indiana Jones movies?
I am just glad we don’t get Chris Pratt as Indy.
I mean this is River Phoenix and Young Indiana Jones erasure. Of course someone else will be Indy. Let’s just thank our lucky stars it won’t be Chris Pratt.
There are worse choices. Shia Lebouf for example.I do agree that Pratt wouldn’t be a good choice though. I think he does comedy pretty well, but anything that requires any sort of weight he falls flat in. Tried watching his new Amazon prime series. Woof. He’s terrible in it.
Not to mention Sean Patrick Flannery. Indiana Jones has already been played by three actors, why stop now?
More than three… River Phoenix & Harrison Ford in the films, Sean Patrick Flannery, Corey Carrier, and George Hall on the Young Indy TV show.
If only two of the Indys weren’t dead, they could make a fun multiverse of madness movie with all of them.
Because inventing new stuff would be more interesting?
That’s a fair point. Trying to make something new is a good reason to not have a new Indiana Jones movie. Thinking the role can’t be recast isn’t.
Pratt is too goofy to be Indy. They should cast Armie Hammer. Come to think of it, whatever happened to that guy?
for real, I’m all for comic actors with range, but Jurassic World was Pratt’s big “I can be a serious action movie star too!” and he comes off as so unlikably joyless in that.Granted, no one comes off well in those movies, but I have yet to see evidence that Pratt has any range beyond “goofball with soul”
Agreed. His vibe is all wrong for Indy.
Turned out he’s actually a cannibal and a women abuser, I think it’s probably a good thing he’s not making movies anymore. Actually I just saw an article he’s some kind of salesman in the Caymans lol
Armie? He’s busy having an old friend for dinner…
Come to think of it, whatever happened to that guy?Can’t tell if serious or trolling
lmfao
Someone do it. Pratt. Zachary Levi. Whoever.Because they need to do what was alluded to in Crystal Skull – Indy in WWII, helping found the CIA
“I’m tired of finding biblical artifacts – I’d rather assassinate democratically elected leaders of Central American countries and orchestrate the deaths of black civil rights leaders” – Indy, 1949.
You called the cops on a lot of high school parties, didn’t you?
Pointing out immoral foreign policy is the same as squelching teen parties?
But who will play Indy’s teenage sidekick, Herbert Hoover?
Too right. The IJ universe already has Shia LaBeouf, who’s even worse.
What an idiot tweet. Who cares what Pratt thinks about the franchise. I don’t see why Pratt couldn’t play Indy. He’s a wise-cracking doof. Please make more movies, because we don’t have enough Marvel or Star Wars movies, god knows.
Or we could do the unthinkable and create an actual new character and put them in an original movie that most people will like. Just shitballin.
A new character? An original movie? That’s insane! You are deeply unwell. I’m calling a mental health professional for you immediately. Please remain calm.
“I don’t even know who Steven Spielberg is. Who? Steven Who?” jokes Pratt
Man, I can see why almost all actors desperately need writers.
Non ironically, thank you Harrison Ford.
…Pratt, the star of the reboot of Spielberg’s classic Jurassic Park.That wasn’t a reboot, as I understand the term. Just a very delayed sequel?
I would call it a legacy rebooquel
Dudes essentially played Indiana Jones in 2 separate franchises already
Reminder that Chris Pratt is the Anti-Christ and that the sooner he retires and never acts again, the sooner racism will be solved and terrorists will go away forever.
Not sure where it fits in everybody hates Chris arc, but I’ll always love him for this.Seriously, they should’ve just handed him his EGOT for this performance alone.
Counter point: Go thru with your username’s suggestion.
Was it racism? I thought it was homophobia/ transphobia
He’s the Anti-Christ. Therefore, both. And whatever other misdeeds in the world you wanna heap on top of him, like Roe v. Wade being overturned or climate change not being taken seriously, whatever.
Personally I blame him for my dog’s passing after she sat down to watch Guardians of the Galaxy with us so sign me up
There are certain properties I agree shouldn’t be touched, but I absolutely don’t care if they recast Indiana Jones, as long as they make an entertaining film.In a similar vein, would anyone be remotely upset if they remade Jaws?
Yes. I would hate a remake of Jaws, because you know they would focus on the shark because of all the great CGI. The bad mechanical shark in the original improved the movie because Spielberg had to focus on the humans and their relation to each other.
Chris Pratt has essentially been playing a Harrison Ford-lite persona since he hit the big screen. Even if they did cast him as Indiana Jones my objection would not be the recasting, it would be how unexciting that recasting choice would be.
Hard disagree – all of Ford’s iconic characters (Indy, Han, Deckard) have been world-weary, morally grey, skeptical, and tired of this shit. Pratt’s iconic movie characters (Star-Lord, Emmet, whatever his Jurassic character is named) are eager, big-hearted, music-loving, and varying degrees of goofy. They just share a propensity for irreverent wise-cracking, and that’s about it.
there should be more new Marvel Comics, at least. Hand them off to Christopher Priest and let him have at it.
Not if they are as bad as the last six years of Star Wars comics, blegh. I miss the quirky Dark Horse stuff. You can’t see the current regime giving Jim Woodring a gig.
I’ve seen numerous interviews over the years where Steven Spielberg has extolled his love of the Bond films and openly admitted that Indiana Jones was his attempt at creating a James Bond type character – to the point where he even cast the original Bond as Indy’s father.With that in mind, the role can easily be recast.
So you’re saying Chris Pratt should be the next Bond?
The whole Pratt as Indy thing reeks – just reeks to high heaven of his agent pushing this role HARD back when he was hitting with GotG and Jurassic World. It wasn’t just a trial balloon, it was a zeppelin the size of Texas. And just about as subtle. This article here & now has probably been re-engineered as a new fart-sized trial balloon, just to make sure the issue’s dead. Pratt’s reps are still working this outside chance that maybe… just maybe… Pratt’s fine for what he does. He’s got a little too much Jack Black in him to play Indy. Sure he can jump over a pit of spikes with the best of them, but as Henry Jones Junior: college professor at Stanford (or fictional Ivy League wherever) … No way. I’ll meet you half way. We got a Chris that could play Indiana Jones, but his last name is Evans.
U of Chicago. Top notch anthropology department but not ivy league.
Just like not every movie needs to be a sequel or reboot, not every action movie needs this Chris in it. If one NEEDS to reboot Indiana Jones. Find a good unknown actor to give them a chance and to be less of a distraction.
CAST SOMEONE THAT CAN BE CONVINCINGLY SMART ENOUGH TO BE A PROFESSOR!!!
It’s sweet that Ford thinks they’ll honestly let the character die with him. I mean if he goes before Spielberg, Spielberg might try to stop a remake/reboot/sequel from happening, but once they’re both six feet under, I’m sure someone at Disney’s got a script ready to bust out within a year.
As long as Shia didn’t get the job, I have no problem with ANY other actor playing Indy.Not even sure I want to see Ford back in it – that last one was tedious as hell.
God bless this weed smoking, plane crashing, Star Wars hating dude.
To be fair, harrison ford is a bit of a piece of shit anyway
Send ol’ Harrison over to my house so I can thank him properly.
OK, let’s logic this fucker out.Harrison Ford was nearly 40 when Raiders came out. Let’s assume that any recast Indy wouldn’t take place until 2026 at the earliest, so let’s look at actors born in 1986:Just a quick google search: Hah… Shia LeBouf was born in 1986. Oh well.Here are the other choices:Richard Madden, Robert Pattison, Kit Harrington – Of those, R-Patz probably would have the most fun, but can Indy be a Brit?Wyatt Russell – Oh… fuck.
I think we have a winner.
Excited we can tick off the “Chris Pratt Hate Article” for July. Any sneak peek for August?
Well, uh… Good?I think it’s foolish to retire the character once Ford dies, but Pratt isn’t right for the Indy. The character is too earnest for Pratt’s style. Plus, who would want to take on those unmeetable expectations? At best, you have a polarized fanbase, half of which is virulent and will never accept you. At worst, you have career suicide.
Maybe it’s too meta, but they could do a movie where Indy’s gone and others try to fill his shoes, but can’t. A failed adventure that demonstrates how special Indy is/was. On the flip side, Ghostbusters is working on passing the torch, so maybe Indy could have another go of it (since it didn’t work out with Indy’s son).