Producer Says ‘Indiana Jones’ Reboot Will Happen, But They Won’t Recast the Role

Since Disney bought the rights to Lucasfilm back in October of 2012, fans have been speculating about what it means for the future of Indiana Jones. In addition to the Star Wars rights, Disney has the rights to future Indiana Jones movies and, considering they paid $3 billion, they’re going to exploit those rights. Everyone from Chris Pratt to Bradley Cooper has been rumored to be taking over for Harrison Ford, but producer Frank Marshall says not so fast. There will be more Indiana Jones movies, but they will never recast that famous role.

Marshall spoke with Total Film about the future of the franchise and said that before they start a new Indiana Jones movie, they need to figure out how exactly to do it, because they’re not going to do it without Ford:

There are a lot of rumors. We haven’t even sat down to talk about Indy yet… at some point we’ll sit down. But there’s a bunch of people who could probably take the baton. [But we are] not doing the Bond thing where we’re going to call somebody else Indiana Jones… we have to figure this out.

Essentially what they’re trying to do is figure out how to do with Indiana Jones what they’re currently doing for Star Wars. They didn’t bring in a bunch of new, young actors to play Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, they continued on with new characters that will eventually be able to carry a new set of films by themselves. That works well for Star Wars, which already had a deep, rich mythology, but how will that work with Indiana Jones, who mostly went on episodic adventures? The last time we tried to build out his mythology we got Mutt Williams and the last thing we need or want is more Mutt Williams.

And, this is essentially the problem that Lucasfilm, Disney and Steven Spielberg are trying to crack. How do you continue on in the Indiana Jones series of films with Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones while also setting the stage for future movies with a new set of adventuring characters?

Not that anyone is asking us, but here’s our pitch: The Indiana Jones Chronicles. Indy is old now (Harrison Ford is 73), and his adventuring days are behind him. He’s mostly sitting around Princeton telling stories to eager students. Then we get to have Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones who introduces us to a flashback of Chris Pratt (or, whoever) as Indiana Jones in the 1940s doing what he do. It requires a little suspension of disbelief that Chris Pratt is Indy, but these are Dr. Jones’ tall tales, so it makes sense that he’s imagining himself as a matinee star.

Or, not. We don’t know.

What do you think? If you’ve got a bangup idea, leave it in the comments below and we’ll add some of our faves to this article.