When news broke that Disney purchased Lucasfilm the news also broke that they would be making more Star Wars movies. From that moment to this one, the segment of the world that focuses on pop culture, which is most of the internet, has been going Star Wars crazy. There is another major Lucasfilm property, however, that has not been forgotten. More and more evidence has been piling up recently that a new Indiana Jones movie is on its way at some point. While it’s exact status is not clear, Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy is implying that it has its place on the production schedule, even if we still don’t know exactly where that is.
All of the key players in the Indiana Jones franchise have said that a new Indy movie is likely. Harrison Ford has said that he’d love to play the part again, Steven Spielberg has said that he fully expects to direct another film in the series, and Kennedy herself has gone on record that there’s an expectation it will be done. However, she’s also said that no specific discussions regarding the next movie have taken place. In a recent interview with Wired Magazine, Kennedy was asked if she was interested in possibly creating something new at Lucasfilm. Her answer made it clear that something new would only come after something familiar, and something specific. She said:
I’ve talked about it with everybody at Disney. Alan [Horn, chair of Walt Disney Studios] is very supportive of it. But at the same time, he’s right when he says we’ve got a lot on our plate. And then I’ll be working with them on Indiana Jones.
The amount of Star Wars on Kennedy’s plate is extensive. Three new Episodes in the proper Star Wars saga, as well as the upcoming Rogue One, are set in stone movies that we can all expect to see. In addition, there’s a handful of other spin off films, including a young Han Solo movie, an early Boba Fett story, and possibly even a trilogy of Obi-Wan Kenobi movies that are all reportedly being developed.
That is certainly a lot of movies to make, but it looks like Indy has not been forgotten in all the sci-fi insanity. It sounds like Kennedy has at least an idea of when she’ll be giving the whip wielding archeologist some attention. She knows when she’ll be working on Indiana Jones 5, and at some point we will, too.
With so much going on we figure Lucasfilm has a schedule very similar to what Marvel has been putting out and it wouldn’t be surprising if they start publicly announcing that schedule in bulk, the way Marvel does. Maybe as part of fiscal year reporting when they tell us what ungodly sum of money The Force Awakens has taken in.
