It was the franchise revival that looked to have all but scuppered the immediate future of Indiana Jones – burning more than a few bridges with longtime fans in the process – but it’s been revealed that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull‘s story arc will feed into 2019’s Indiana Jones 5.
That’s according to series producer Frank Marshall, who noted that the long-in-development sequel will act as a “continuation” of the story found in Steven Spielberg’s divisive action-adventure.
Word comes by way of Variety, who spoke briefly with Marshall during the ongoing CinemaCon event. Indeed, there’s not much else to go on outside of Marshall’s quote about the story underpinning Indy 5, but we imagine that the executive is referring to the sequel retaining a sense of continuity, as opposed to welcoming back, say, Shia LaBeouf as budding young explorer Mutt.
Speaking broadly about Harrison Ford’s return as the titular archeologist and professor, Marshall went on to claim that the series stalwart is nigh on irreplaceable as Dr. Henry Jones, and that we shouldn’t expect the franchise to rotate its leading actor in the vein of MGM’s James Bond franchise.
“It’s all about the story. I think both in the ‘Jason Bourne’ series and on ‘Indiana Jones,’ we are not going to do the Bond thing,” he said about possibly rotating out actors. “We think those characters are iconic, and those are the only actors who can play that.”
Indiana Jones 5 is locked for July 19, 2019, but what do you make of the sequel picking up the story strands from Crystal Skull – yay or nay?