You don’t recast him with a star. And you go back to the 1930s so you need an actor of around age 35. My choice is someone I have no familiarity with, but I think has a decent look, and that is Matt Davis from Vampire Diaries, a show I have never watched.
Don’t knock RDJ. He’s played a Victorian London detective/Wing Chun expert, a self-aggrandizing actor playing a Negro soldier, a “billionaire playboy genius philantropist” superhero, and most impressively, Charlie Chaplin. I bet he could cut a hell of a swath as Short Round. “No time for love, Doctah Jones!”
However, I think Val Kilmer has gotten way too fat to play Jones, so…Timothy Olyphant? We could also cast Walton Goggins as the turncoat friend and film it on the cheap at the end of the next shooting season of Justified.
Tell me I’m not onto something here.
Stranger
To add to the Temple of Doom discussion, it has one great advantage over the other two:
It is my least favorite, therefore I’ve had far fewer repeat viewings, therefore it is always more “fresh” to me than the others.
I watched a screening just a few weeks ago with a nearly packed house. It was great fun. With a full audience, Willie Scott is actually pretty funny. She’s playing a very broad trope- and you can make a strong case that the trope itself is annoying- but Capshaw actually nails it. Same thing goes for Shortround.
And with all the film’s drawbacks and misfires, the bridge scene is one of the best scenes in the entire series.
Temple is actually OK. But that’s the problem, it’s just OK, and the other two are so very good. Mind you, #4…well what can I say… it had some glorious moments.
So, yeah, I’m looking forward to V.
If you recast Indy in the '30s and bring back the Nazis, you can explore more archaeological triumphs while also somehow shoehorning Ford in as the world’s greatest cameo or distant supporting actor.
I’d be down for a fifth installment as long as Shia LaBeouf has no involvement. Maybe a throwaway line by Indy about Mutt being eaten by an anaconda or something.
They could always have Indy’s next adventure involve the Fountain of Youth and swap out Ford for the New Meat.
It also has the “freeing the slave children” scene, which is pure awesome.
I still hold that the fourth would have been great if they’d had the bad guys be Nazi’s™ who’d fled to south america at the end of the war, maybe trying to resurrect the Reich. When I first heard it would be set there I even assumed that’s what Lucas would do but… he didn’t. Even all the ancient astronaut mumbo-jumbo could have been saved with the inclusion of Nazi™ Flying Saucers…
OB
Nazca, Nazi… This stuff writes itself!
That could have been awesome!
Maybe the next one will go in that line.
Indiana Jones without Nazis is just not worth watching.
Have something to do with the Russians and the Cold War, but make the actual bad guys ex-Nazis pulling the strings behind the scenes in Eastern Europe. Maybe begin in China and head west.
Give me a weekend and I could write it!
I read an Indy book as a kid - it might have been a choose your own adventure - that was set in the Himalayas and featured yetis. By a 9 year-old’s standards it was a great adventure.
Found it! It was a UK only series - don’t know how it came across it in the Midwest, and it was written by R.L. Stine:
i wonder at how far will they will stretch the subject ( for instance, fast and the furious comes to mind )
You absolutely HAVE to recast the role with a star otherwise every single review of the movie is going to spend half the space comparing the young “unknown” to Ford and it will never be favorable.
You recast it with a Depp or Downey type (but neither of them)–a well known actor who routinely disappears into a role.
[dons white hat]
Indiana Jones belongs in a museum!!
[/removes white hat]
I’d personally rather have THIS. The art style on those character sheets looks perfect for an adventure show about fighting Nazis in jungles, we wouldn’t have to worry about Indiana being way too old for this kinda shit, and Lucas probably wouldn’t bother to get involved. How can we make this Indy cartoon happen, you guys?
Out of curiosity, am I the only person on the entire internet who really liked Short Round? I never did get why people found him so annoying, especially when compared with Willie Scott, who should have died in the mystic fire.
What’s River Phoenix up to?
Not much, one hopes.
How about Karl Urban as the new Indy?
Of course Indy 2 is the best one - it inspired one of the best movie tie-in games ever!