Home//The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's Edition/The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's Edition/In This Issue
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionA DATE WITH DESTINYHarrison Ford will don the iconic fedora for a fifth (and, he says, final) film in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. What made the 80-year-old actor return to play his most iconic character (sorry, Han Solo!) for one last adventure? “Trying not to look silly running around in tight pants and high boots,” he quipped to CBS This Morning before clarifying the real reason: “When we have the opportunity to make another, it’s because people have enjoyed them. I feel obliged that our efforts are as ambitious as they were when we started.” And what a start that was: 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, the genre-redefining adventure from the movie-mad minds of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Even as the whip-cracking, Nazi-punching archaeologist Indiana Jones ages, his…2 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionTHE SEARCHFOR INDYIT’S NOW DIFFICULT TO PICTURE ANYONE other than Harrison Ford as the adventurous archaeologist Dr. Henry Walton “Indiana” Jones Jr. But when initially casting the character for Raiders of the Lost Ark, writer/producer George Lucas specifically didn’t want Ford to play Indy. “I was wary of Harrison and I becoming like [Martin] Scorsese and [Robert] De Niro,” Lucas, who had already worked with Ford on both 1973’s American Graffiti and 1977’s Star Wars, told Empire. “I thought, ‘Let’s create a new icon.’” So Lucas and director Steven Spielberg auditioned actors such as Tim Matheson, Peter Coyote and Harry Hamlin (see page 68) before a clear favorite emerged in the form of rising star Tom Selleck. “We screen-tested Tom Selleck with Sean Young [as Marion] and it went really, really well,”…3 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionFORD TOUGHHIGH SCHOOL SENIOR A Cub Scout and Boy Scout while growing up, Ford told Parade that his childhood was “absolutely unremarkable” and “relatively uneventful, middle-class”—but nonetheless happy. BIT PART Ford was 24 when he made his film debut in the 1966 James Coburn crime film, Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, playing a bellboy whose only line was, “Paging Mr. Ellis, paging Mr. Ellis.” Said Ford, “It was not an uplifting experience.” BIG BREAK “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, my God, he’s so cute,’” American Graffiti co-star Mackenzie Phillips told People about seeing Ford, then 30, as the trashtalking drag racer Bob Falfa in the 1973 film. THE RISE OF THE THREE-DAY GROWTH Indiana Jones had plenty of close shaves, but they weren’t with a razor blade. Ford made Indy’s signature scruff…3 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionWILL INDY SURVIVE?While Harrison Ford says the fifth film is his grand finale, could another actor fill the character’s boots? Not if Ford has anything to say about it. “Nobody else is gonna be Indiana Jones!” he quipped when asked about the topic on the Today show in 2019. “Don’t you get it? I’m Indiana Jones. When I’m gone, he’s gone. It’s easy…. This is a hell of a way to tell Chris Pine this.” (We think he meant Chris Pratt, who had been rumored as a possible replacement for Ford in 2015, but who are we to correct him?) Ford’s declaration sparked speculation that Indy dies in the fifth film. His demise wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of the franchise, which Steven Spielberg says would almost certainly continue without Ford, perhaps…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionBLOCKBUSTER BEGINNINGTHE CREATOR OF STAR WARS AND THE director of Jaws teaming up on an action-adventure seems like a recipe for a surefire success. But Hollywood wasn’t always so sure about Raiders of the Lost Ark. “Raiders was turned down by practically every studio in town,” George Lucas told Empire in 2012. One reason for Hollywood’s hesitancy? The financial demands of the deal that Lucas proposed. “It broke a lot of precedents that no one wanted to break; its definition of profits upset their apple cart,” said Lucas. “The other part was I would develop it and turn it over to them, which gave them little control. “They didn’t like that. I had licensing. I controlled sequel rights. Things that fed off what I did with Star Wars.” There were even…7 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionThe Grossest Meal Ever!How did monkey brains, beetles, eels and eyeballs end up on the menu in Temple of Doom’s banquet scene in India? Screenwriters Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz said that they cooked up the scene after Steven Spielberg was concerned about boring audiences when explaining the Kali cult. “Steven and George both still react like children, so their idea was to make it as gross as possible,” Katz told People in 1984. “I said, ‘What about a meal of the worst stuff you would ever imagine as long as you live?’” Spielberg told The Complete Making of Indiana Jones. “Eels, bugs, monkey brains—this was a scene that really leaned toward gross-out comedy. We had rubber bugs with high-quality custard dessert inside: the monkey brains were custard with raspberry sauce; inside the…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionTHIRD TIME’STHE CHARMSPIELBERG SAID HE MADE THE THIRDIndiana Jones movie for two reasons: to fulfill his contractual obligation to the trilogy and to “apologize” for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Here’s how the director more than made it up to fans of the franchise—with a little help from James Bond! After failing to connect with the material in Temple of Doom, Spielberg was in search of the right idea. (It had to be worth it: He had to pass on helming Big and Rain Man because of his obligation to Indy 3.) “I THINK IT WAS A BRILLIANT IDEA TO BRING SEAN IN…I’M NOT COMPETITIVE AS AN ACTOR.”HARRISON FORD, ON SEAN CONNERY George Lucas had given a story treatment to Gremlins screenwriter Chris Columbus, who wrote a script called Indiana…7 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionRIVER RUNS THROUGH ITWhen it came time to cast young Indy, River Phoenix had quite the referral: Indiana Jones himself! “I loved River Phoenix’s work, especially in Stand by Me, but Harrison was the one who suggested River,” Steven Spielberg revealed. “He said, ‘The guy who looks most like me when I was that age is an actor named River Phoenix.’ I met River, thought he was great, and cast him. “He very seriously studied Harrison in all of his films, his vocal inflection and his physical style,” Spielberg added. Ford and Phoenix had previously played father and son in 1986’s The Mosquito Coast and formed an off-screen bond, with the teen describing Ford as “a real father figure.” When Phoenix died of a drug overdose in 1993 at the age of 23,…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionINDY’S FOURTHADVENTURETHE LAST CRUSADE? MAYBE NOT. GEORGE Lucas thought he was done with Indiana Jones, but Indiana Jones wasn’t done with him. “I’m the one that has to come up with the story, and the MacGuffin, the supernatural object that everyone’s going after,” Lucas told Vanity Fair in 2008. “The Ark of the Covenant was perfect. The Sankara Stones were way too esoteric. The Holy Grail was sort of feeble—but, at the same time, we put the father in there to cover for it.” Lucas struggled to come up with a similar plot device to power a fourth film. But then inspiration struck in December 1992, when he was supervising the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles TV series on location in Wyoming and Harrison Ford made a cameo appearance. “It suddenly dawned…11 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionWHERE ARETHEY NOW?JULIAN GLOVER | WALTER DONOVAN Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade “It’s my favorite film I’ve ever been in—and I’ve been in some quite nice ones,” Glover told Red Carpet News TV of his villainous turn as the archeologist who allies himself with the Nazis. It wasn’t his last role in a pop culture juggernaut: He voiced giant spider Aragog in 2002’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and played Grand Maester Pycelle on Game of Thrones from 2011 to 2016. He’s also turned up on The Crown and Willow and appeared as conductor Andris Davis in 2022’s Oscar-nominated drama Tár. PAUL FREEMAN | DR. RENÉ BELLOQ Raiders of the Lost Ark “I can just see him sitting across from Indy looking like a real threat,” Steven Spielberg said…2 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionDOUBLE TROUBLEALTHOUGH HARRISON FORD FREQUENTLY DOES his own stunts as Indiana Jones, he couldn’t pull it off without the help of some of the best stuntmen in the industry. “I had total confidence in the stunt guys,” Ford revealed in The Stunts of Indiana Jones DVD bonus feature. “They thought through what was safe and what was not, both for themselves and for me, so it was just another day at the office for me.” Here are some of the stuntmen’s stories of their days at the office! THE TRUCK ROLL-UNDER Raiders of the Lost Ark Stuntman | Terry Leonard Stuntman Terry Leonard was doubling for Ford when he ran an idea by Steven Spielberg. “Terry saw my storyboards and said, ‘I wonder if I can talk you into doing something,’”…3 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionINDIANA JONES A TO ZA RICHARD AMSEL The late artist used a combination of colored pencils with watercolors and acrylic paints for his iconic posters for Raiders of the Lost Ark. Artist Drew Struzan used a similar style for his one-sheets for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. B BANTU WIND The tramp steamer carried Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood (along with their precious cargo, the Ark of the Covenant) out of Cairo in Raiders. Found in Belfast by production designer Norman Reynolds, the boat had the ideal beat-up, rusty look—until it was mistakenly given a fresh paint job! “I actually had to send our paint team over to put it back to its previous condition,” Reynolds…7 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionGLOBE-TROTTINGVENICE | ITALY Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade After battling dysentery, mosquitoes and wild weather on previous productions, the crew faced another problem in Venice for the boat-chase scene: tourists! So producer Robert Watts hired a Venetian-born second assistant director to find a crowd-controlled square with a canal on one side and a church on the other. The production ended up getting control of the Grand Canal on the Campo San Barnaba from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. for one hectic day. The Church of San Barnaba also makes a guest appearance in the film as the Venice library, which held a hidden chamber below the floor. SIDI BOUHLEL CANYON | TOZEUR, TUNISIA Raiders of the Lost Ark Tunisia stood in for Egypt for the scene where Indy wields…5 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionTHE STORY BEHIND INDIANAJONESGEORGE LUCAS HAD AN IDEA. IN 1977, WHILE anxiously awaiting the opening weekend box-office returns for his new movie, Star Wars, he invited his pal Steven Spielberg, the director of Jaws, on a vacation to Hawaii. “George thought that a five-anda-half-hour airplane ride was a safe distance between himself and the opening of the picture,” Spielberg recalled in J.W. Rinzler and Laurent Bouzereau’s book The Complete Making of Indiana Jones. Wracked with nerves after the health-endangering experience of directing Star Wars, Lucas had vowed to retire from directing. But when he received word that the early showings of the sci-fi saga were all sold out, his mood lifted. “George was the most giddy I had ever seen him…. He was just beside himself, with relief more than anything,” Spielberg recalled…9 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionWHY HARRISON FORD IS INDIANA JONESEVEN THOUGH TOM SELLECK MIGHT HAVE been George Lucas and Steven Spielberg’s first choice to play the Nazi-punching archaeologist, Harrison Ford has proven to be the perfect fit for the character. It’s a role that Ford was preparing for before he even knew it: As a teen in Wisconsin, Ford worked as an assistant counselor at Camp Napowan, where he got a handle on dealing with Indy’s future phobia. “My task that summer was digging a terrarium, lining the walls with wooden stakes and acquiring a collection of snakes, turtles and amphibians to go in it,” Ford told Parade in February 2020. “It served me well when I came to [be] Indiana Jones and had not developed a fear of snakes.” Ford never expected to be an actor, let alone…7 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionALL THESECRETSOF THENEW SEQUELIT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE INDY’S LAST HURRAH.Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ended with Indiana Jones finally walking down the aisle with Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), with their son, Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), looking like he’s about to try on his father’s fedora, teasing the possibility that LaBeouf could inherit the franchise from Harrison Ford. However, the fedora wasn’t a fit for LaBeouf. After the fourth film’s decidedly mixed reception in 2008 (and LaBeouf’s subsequent scandals), the idea of a fifth film seemed increasingly unlikely. After all, in the lead-up to Crystal Skull, Ford told Premiere magazine that “if we don’t do it again quickly after this one, chances are we won’t do another.” But now, 15 years after Crystal Skull, the wisecracking, whipcracking archaeologist is back…8 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionYES, INDY’S OLD—AND THAT’S OKWith the exception of the de-aged flashback (right), septuagenarian Indiana Jones very much acts his age in Dial of Destiny—and that’s an asset, not a liability. “The mistake you can make in movies is when someone is of a ripe age, but the movies continue the charade that they’re not that old,” Mangold told The Hollywood Reporter. “Every challenge he faces is through the reality of what someone that age would be dealing with.” It was also important to Ford that Indy’s age function as a plot point rather than a punch line: “There were a lot of old jokes in the script,” he recalled. “We took them all out.”…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionINDY’S ONE TRUE LOVEWE MEET MARION RAVENWOOD (KAREN Allen) in Raiders of the Lost Ark as she’s winning a shot-drinking contest against a large Australian guy. When her archaeologist ex-lover Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) saunters into her bar after a 10-year absence, she remarks, “Indiana Jones. I always knew some day you’d come walking back through my door”—before cracking him in the jaw! “It’s a great introduction,” Allen reminisced to Entertainment Weekly in 2012. “That’s the only scene I read at first. No one was allowed to read the script. But that was enough that I totally wanted to do it. Whatever this story was, this was going to be a fantastic character to play.” In pre-Marion life, Allen was in an experimental theater troupe and studying acting in New York City when…3 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionSHORT ROUND‚ ROUND 2TEMPLE OF DOOM’S CASTING DIRECTORS scouted the globe looking for the perfect pint-size actor to play Indy’s sidekick, Short Round. Six thousand auditions later, they ended up finding 12-year-old Ke Huy Quan in Los Angeles. “My brother went to the open call for Short Round so I tagged along, and the casting director asked me to read for him,” Quan—who’s credited in the film as Jonathan Ke Quan—told Empire in 2012. “I couldn’t even pronounce the words. The next day we got a call from Steven’s office. I remember my mom dressing me in a three-piece suit. I didn’t know who Steven [Spielberg], George [Lucas] or Harrison [Ford] were. I hadn’t seen Raiders of the Lost Ark and I didn’t even know this was a sequel.” Quan’s obliviousness may have…4 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionRAT INSURANCE?Since you can’t put out a casting call for thousands of disease-free rats, producer Frank Marshall had to work with breeders to secure enough rats for the catacomb scene. “In order to have rats that aren’t infected with some sort of virus or disease, you have to basically cultivate them from birth, so our animal handlers have given birth to something like 2,000 rats,” Steven Spielberg told The Complete Making of Indiana Jones. The rodents got more star treatment when Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company granted Paramount Pictures the first (and possibly last) “thousand-rat insurance policy.” (It would’ve paid out if the production had lost more than 1,000 rodents.) And in the end, the rats got along famously with their human co-stars. “The rats were great and thankfully, they were not…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's Edition“No Ticket,” No Pants, No ProblemIf you can’t stand the heat…take off your pants! That was Sean Connery’s mentality when the set got too hot while filming the scene where Indy tosses a Nazi out of a blimp for having “no ticket.” “The passengers were in fur; it’s supposed to be in winter,” Connery recalled. “I was playing without pants. Harrison said: ‘Are you doing the scene without pants?’ I answer: ‘I have to or else I’ll stop constantly because I’m sweating.’ He did the same.” This wouldn’t be the last time Connery would convince a co-star to drop trou: Wesley Snipes said the 007 star did the same thing on 1993’s Rising Sun. “When we were doing car scenes, I was fully costumed and he came in with a jacket, tie and shirt, shorts…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionSHIA VS. SPIELBERGCrystal Skull set up Shia LaBeouf to potentially take over the franchise. But two years after the film’s release, he publicly trashed not only his performance, but the writing and (gasp!) Steven Spielberg’s direction. “I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven. But the actor’s job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn’t do it. So that’s my fault. Simple.” Harrison Ford took his onscreen son to task. “I think he was a f---ing idiot,” the star told Details in 2011. “As an actor, I think it’s my…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionCAST ASIDEHARRYHAMLIN AS INDIANA JONES IN RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK The L.A. Law star said he blew his audition to become Indy by gossiping about director Steven Spielberg with Stephanie Zimbalist, who was reading for the part of Marion. Spielberg had asked Hamlin and Zimbalist to bake a cake from scratch for George Lucas, who he said was running late. While making the dessert, Hamlin told Zimbalist that his BFF, actress Amy Irving, had been complaining about Spielberg showing up at her play’s stage door every night with flowers. “The place was bugged with cameras and microphones and they, George and Steven, were upstairs watching us,” Hamlin told the New York Post. “So hey, guess what? I didn’t get the part, I’ve never worked with Steven Spielberg and I never…2 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionOFTEN IMITATED,NEVER DUPLICATEDTREASURE HUNTING Perhaps no other franchise borrows from Indy as blatantly as the National Treasure films. The first film in 2004 found historian and cryptologist Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) trying to steal the Declaration of Independence, while 2007’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets had him searching for the lost diary of John Wilkes Booth and finding a City of Gold underneath Mount Rushmore. While the Indy comparisons don’t always work out in the franchise’s favor (“National Treasure wants so badly to be the next incarnation of Indiana Jones, you can almost taste the desperation,” wrote Sue Millinocket at MovieRewind), National Treasure 3 is now in the works at Disney. UNCHARTED TERRITORY The video game Uncharted follows the adventures of roguish treasure hunter Nathan Drake as he searches for the…3 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionTRIVIALPURSUITSMany of the “body blow” sounds in Raiders of the Last Ark’s fight scenes were created by hitting a pile of leather jackets with a baseball bat. Bugging out! More than 50,000 co*ckroaches and 30,000 beetles were used in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’s infamous insect tunnel scene. Kate Capshaw (right) said that Steven Spielberg had to teach her how to scream on the set of Temple of Doom. She proved to be a good student: Her character, Willie Scott, screams a total of 71 times throughout the film. Capshaw said of playing the nightclub singer, “Screaming is not as easy as it looks.” In Last Crusade, the gun that Walter Donovan (Julian Glover) uses to shoot Henry Jones Sr. (Sean Connery) is a Walther PPK. It probably…3 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionTHE QUIZ OF DOOM1. When Karen Allen auditioned to play Marion, which of her Animal House co-stars, who was up for the part of Indiana Jones, screen-tested with her? A. John Belushi B. Kevin Bacon C. Tim Matheson D. Tom Hulce 2. Which of the following was not one of the early titles considered for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? A.Indiana Jones and the Destroyer of Worlds B.Indiana Jones and the City of Gods C.Indiana Jones and the Fourth Corner of the Earth D.Indiana Jones vs. the Son of Indiana Jones 3. Steven Spielberg became convinced that Harrison Ford was right for the role of Indiana Jones after watching a rough cut of which movie? A.Blade Runner B.The Empire Strikes Back C.Apocalypse Now D.Force 10 from Navarone 4. Indiana…3 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionPHOTO CREDITSCOVER: Getty Images(2); Getty Images/iStockphoto;Lucasfilm/Paramount Pictures/Kobal/Shutterstock(2); Everett Collection; Allstar Picture Library Ltd./Alamy Stock Photo; Moviestore/Shutterstock; AA Film Archive/Alamy Stock Photo; Album/Alamy Stock Photo; Paramount/Everett Collection(2); Walt Disney Pictures/MovieStillsDB 2-3: Paramount/Everett Collection(5); Paramount Pictures/Photofest; Entertainment Pictures/Alamy Stock Photo; Lucasfilm Ltd/Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock; Lucasfilm Ltd/Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock(2); Don Arnold/WireImage/Getty Images; Nancy Moran/Sygma via Getty Images; Moviestore/Shutterstock; Nancy Moran/Sygma via Getty Images; Paramount/Everett Collection(2); Lucasfilm Ltd/Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock: Walt Disney Pictures/MovieStillsDB 4-5: Paramount/Everett Collection; Shutterstock/Eric Isselee; Collection Christophel/Alamy Stock Photo; Paramount/Everett Collection; Walt Disney Pictures/MovieStillsDB 6-7: Walt Disney Pictures/MovieStillsDB 8-9: Paramount Pictures/Photofest 10-11: Entertainment Pictures/Alamy Stock Photo; Allstar Picture Library Ltd./Alamy Stock Photo; Shutterstock/Weerachai Khamfu 12: Collection Christophel/Alamy Stock Photo; Shutterstock/Weerachai Khamfu 13: Moviestore/Shutterstock 14: Bei/Shutterstock; Moviestore/Shutterstock; Shutterstock/Weerachai Khamfu 15: Moviestore/Shutterstock; Everett Collection(4); 20th Century Fox Film Corp/Everett Collection 16-17: Donaldson Collection/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; Harry Langdon/Getty Images; Nancy…4 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionLucas and Spielberg: A Filmmaking FriendshipSteven Spielberg was an admirer of George Lucas before they were friends. The future filmmaking team met at a film festival held at UCLA in 1967, when Lucas was attending USC and Spielberg was a second-year student at Cal State Long Beach. “I was blown away by his short film, [THX-1138]; Francis Coppola introduced us,” Spielberg told Vanity Fair. “It wasn’t until a couple of years later that we became friends, because some writing friends of mine, Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, were very close to George, and they put us together a second time, and that’s when George and I became fast friends.” What Spielberg called their “shared passion and personal friendship” led to their collaboration on Raiders. Spielberg said their preexisting bond helped them resolve creative conflicts. “George…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionINDY vs. HAN SOLOWHO’S COOLER? While fans have frequently debated the merits of Ford’s two most iconic characters (both George Lucas creations), it appears that the actor himself prefers Indy. “Han’s certainly a much less interesting character than Indiana Jones,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2008, dismissing the snarky smuggler as a mere foil between the “more compelling characters” of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker and even calling the Millennium Falcon pilot “dumb as a stump.” On a 2010 episode of The Late Show With David Letterman, Ford added insult to injury by referring to Han as “Ham Yoyo.” After 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens killed off his character, Ford told Jimmy Kimmel, “I argued for 30 years for this to happen and finally I wore them down.” And when he again…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionSALLAH’S BACK!“I miss the desert, I miss the sea, I miss waking up every morning wondering what kind of adventure the new day will bring to us,” declares Indy’s Egyptian sidekick Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir (John Rhys-Davies) in the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The return of the fez-wearing fan-favorite could be a good luck charm for the fifth film. “The two films in the franchise that are most beloved by nearly all [Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade] are the ones that have Sallah in them, while the two films that are typically regarded as the weakest [Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull] are the ones that John Rhys-Davies…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionA TV Spin-off?The End…? The extended universe of Indiana Jones may actually have a future on a Disney+ series. “The Mouse House and Lucasfilm have specifically been bringing up the possibility of a streaming show set in the world of the globe-trotting archaeologist in general meetings with writers of late, sources say,” Variety reported in November 2022. “It is unknown if a series would serve as a prequel to or spin-off of the film franchise, or if it would tie into the upcoming fifth Indiana Jones film, similar to how Disney has tied its Marvel shows on Disney+ into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionENTER THE COBRAHaving a set full of serpents for the “Well of Souls” scene had already been problematic. First assistant Dave Tomblin was OK after being bitten by a nonvenomous python, but tension ramped up when 10 poisonous cobras were delivered to the set. “The python—the one that’s been trying to bite people—bit the cobra. The cobra killed the python,” producer Frank Marshall told The Complete Making of Indiana Jones. After a scramble to find antivenin and a physician, two nurses and an ambulance on standby, the cobra was ready for its close-up as Indy faced his biggest fear. “You can see a reflection on the sheet of glass that was in between myself and the cobra,” Ford said. It was a necessary precaution. “At one point the cobra whipped its head…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionTHE CONTROVERSIAL PREQUELTWO WEEKS AFTER THE OPENING OF RAIDERSof the Lost Ark, it was back to the drawing board—literally!—for George Lucas and Steven Spielberg as they worked on ideas for the second Indiana Jones movie. “George said if I directed the first one then I would have to direct a trilogy; he had three stories in mind,” Spielberg recalled in a 2003 Making the Trilogy DVD documentary. “It turned out George did not have three stories in mind and we had to make up subsequent stories.” That’s where leftover storyboards from Raiders came in handy. “Raiders of the Lost Ark was too super packed with gags, stunts and set pieces; no movie could hold that much,” Spielberg said. He took a river-rafting sequence and a mine-cart chase cut from Raiders but needed…6 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionLEADING LADYDIRECTOR STEVEN SPIELBERG WAS LOOKING for “the girl” to play Willie Scott in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom—and ended up finding his future wife in the process. “I remember taking the tape over to Harrison Ford’s house that night and saying, ‘Look, I’ve got about 15 to 20 girls on tape, but I only want to show you one,’” said Spielberg in a DVD featurette about the making of Temple of Doom. “So I put Kate in. There were no second choices for Harrison. He said, ‘She’s the one.’” “The casting director suggested me because I had just come out to Los Angeles and there is always heat surrounding the new girl,” Capshaw told Empire in 2012. “At that time, I didn’t ‘do’ sequels. And I didn’t ‘do’…4 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionWHAT IS A MACGUFFIN?A MacGuffin is an object, device or event that is vital to the plot and motivation of the characters. The term was popularized in the 1930s by director Alfred Hitchco*ck, who explained that “the MacGuffin is the thing that the spies are after but the audience don’t care.” In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Ark of the Covenant is the MacGuffin, while in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, it’s the Sankara Stones. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the Holy Grail is the MacGuffin and in the fourth film, it’s the titular Crystal Skull.…1 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionFATHER FIGUREWHO COULD MAKE A MACHO MAN LIKE Indiana Jones feel like a boy? When it came time to cast Indy’s father, medieval-history professor Henry Walton Jones Sr., in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, director Steven Spielberg had one actor on his mind: Connery. Sean Connery. “I said to George [Lucas], there’s only one man who can play Indy’s father and that’s James Bond,” Spielberg noted in The Complete Making of Indiana Jones. “The original and the greatest James Bond is Sean Connery.” “My reaction was no,” Lucas told author J.W. Rinzler. “I said, ‘The audience is never going to think of him as anyone other than James Bond. He’s a big movie star and we don’t need a big movie star.’ But Steven said, ‘Yeah, but Indiana Jones is…6 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionCHILLIN’ LIKE A VILLAINCate Blanchett had a sense of déjà vu when she stepped on to the set of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as the villainous KGB agent Irina Spalko. “I did feel on the first day [like], I know the iconography of this,” the two-time Oscar winner told MTV in 2007. “When they were setting up the shot and I was walking into the frame, it felt familiar and strange at the same time.” Even though she was a newcomer to the franchise as an actress, Blanchett had been a fan ever since watching Raiders of the Lost Ark as a kid in Australia. “When Harrison Ford and Karen Allen were on screen together it was utterly electric, utterly transporting,” she told Parade. “The Raiders theme still…3 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionKEEPING UP WITH THE JONESESSMALL-SCREEN STARDOM George Lucas got the idea for the prequel ABC series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles from the flashback scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade featuring the late River Phoenix as a young Indy. (Phoenix passed on the chance to reprise the role because he wasn’t interested in doing TV.) Sean Patrick Flanery (who’d go on to star in the Dead Zone TV series) played Indy from age 16 to 21. Harrison Ford would guest-star as a 50-year-old Indy on the episode “Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues”; the flash-forward scenes find him reminiscing as he rediscovers his old saxophone. The series also featured a 93-year-old Indy, who had a patch over one eye, wore a bow tie and carried a cane. He was…6 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionINDY’S FAMOUSFANSJOHN BOYEGA “It’s very cool going to work every day and one of your colleagues just happens to be Indiana Jones,” he told The Late Late Show With James Corden about befriending co-star Harrison Ford on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. TOM FELTON The Brit was the villain Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise, but he dressed up as hero Indiana Jones for Halloween in 2016. RYAN GOSLING He was accidentally punched in the face by Ford while making Blade Runner 2049, but that doesn’t mean that Gosling isn’t up for an encore in an Indiana Jones sequel. “I’m working on it, man!” the former Disney Channel star told E! News in 2017. As for the punch in the face? Ford told his co-star it was “an honor” to…2 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionCAN YOU DIG IT?“ARCHAEOLOGY IS THE SEARCH FOR FACT… not truth,” Indiana Jones tells his students in Last Crusade. But how does the fictional archaeology of the franchise hold up to factual archaeology, which studies the cultural past by examining remains, artifacts and environmental data? Tulane University archaeologist Marcello Canuto isn’t a fan of Indy’s methods. “That first scene [in Raiders], where he’s in the temple and he’s replacing that statue with a bag of sand—that’s what looters do,” he told Gizmodo in 2014. “If someone was to come into my camp and dig up the site, I might throw him in a snake pit, too.” Booby traps are also less of a factor in real life. “The ruins [in the opening scene of Raiders] are supposedly Chachapoyan…but they didn’t boobytrap their burials,…3 min
The Ultimate Guide to Indiana Jones - Special Collector's EditionINDY’S MOST QUOTABLE QUIPSNo. 10“You want to talk to God? Let’s go see Him together, I’ve got nothing better to do.” Raiders of the Lost Ark After Belloq (Paul Freeman) calls the Ark of the Covenant “a radio for speaking to God,” Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) comes up with this clever comeback as he gets up to fight his archaeologist enemy. Belloq’s henchmen quickly pull their guns on Indy as a group of kids escort him to safety. Although Belloq gets the last word (“Next time, Dr. Jones, it’ll take more than children to save you”), Indy still got the best line. No. 9“I was just remembering the last time we had a quiet drink together. I had a milkshake.” Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Speaking to his father, Dr. Henry Jones…4 min
