INDIANA JONES 5 Announced with Harrison Ford & Steven Spielberg

If desperation has a name, it must be Indiana Jones.

The Hollywood Reporter has word that Disney has officially announced a fifth Indiana Jones film for 2019, featuring the return of Harrison Ford as adventure hero Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. along with director Steven Spielberg.  Creator George Lucas is reportedly not involved with the project.

According to the article, Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilms, and her husband Frank Marshall will produce the film.  Kennedy previously worked on the original film, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), as an associate to Spielberg, while Marshall was the producer.  Both were involved with the next three films, all of which Spielberg directed.

The last film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was released in 2008 to mostly negative reactions from fans and critics, although it still made over $786 million worldwide.

The article also claims that Disney and Paramount reached an agreement in 2013 giving Disney control over all future films.  Paramount retains rights to the first four films and will receive a financial participation on any future films that are produced and released.
"Indiana Jones is one of the greatest heroes in cinematic history, and we can’t wait to bring him back to the screen in 2019," said Disney chairman Alan Horn.  "It’s rare to have such a perfect combination of director, producers, actor and role, and we couldn’t be more excited to embark on this adventure with Harrison and Steven."

Ford, 73, seems to be taking advantage of a career resurgence of late, after reprising his role of Han Solo in last year's Star Wars: The Force Awakens for presumably the last time. In addition, he's expected to reprise his character of Rick Deckard in a sequel to Blade Runner for 2018.

Indiana Jones 5 is slated to arrive in theaters on July 19, 2019.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK Gets Stop-Motion Remake

Like probably many of you out there, one of my all-time favorite movies is Steven Spielberg's 1981 action-adventure classic Raiders of the Lost Ark, starring Harrison Ford and Karen Allen.  The opening sequence, featuring archaeologist Indiana Jones and his companion Satipo going into an ancient, booby-trapped Peruvian temple to recover a golden idol, sets the tone for one of the greatest films of all time.

Well, it seems animator Jeff Gurwood is quite the fan as well.  He apparently spent six grueling months recreating this six-minute sequence in a shot-for-shot video, using the process of stop-motion animation featuring Hasbro action figures and custom-built sets.  Cartoon Network's Adult Swim series Robot Chicken has done this sort of thing for a while now, even featuring Raiders parody sketches, but certainly not a shot-for-shot remake without the advantages of a major animation studio.

Enjoy the stop-motiony goodness...

Indiana Jones and the George Lucas of Doom

It seems that South Park has been validated once again.



Blue Sky Disney has posted a rather disturbing, yet unfortunately inevitable report that George Lucas is planning to rerelease the Indiana Jones films in all-new, completely unnecessary 3D versions.  Raiders of the Lost Ark is the first film scheduled for release, so it appears as though the Indy films will premiere in order of original release as opposed to the Star Wars films, which are being rereleased in order of continuity.

Apparently, we have none other than James Cameron to blame for all this.  Lucas has been geeking out over 3D since Avatar, so cue the predictable jokes about a potential 3D release of Howard the Duck...