When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in
2012, many perhaps were focused only on one franchise brought to life by that
production company, “Star Wars.” It is easy to forget that Lucasfilm has
another classic action-adventure film series from the 1980s under its belt, namely
“Indiana Jones” starring Harrison Ford. A sequel gap between third and fourth
films (1989-2008) enabled Ford to play an aged version of his adventurer
archaeologist character Dr. “Indiana” Jones, also shifting time periods from
pre-WWII to the Cold War. A fifth “Indiana Jones” has been slated for release
in 2022, and while no details on its plot are available, some heavy-hitting
cast members were announced, including “Zorro.”
By that we mean actor Antonio
Banderas is the latest Hollywood star to be announced as joining the cast for
the yet un-subtitled “Indiana Jones 5.” As Variety
tells us, he joins Madds Mikkelsen, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Boyd Holbrook and
more as Harrison Ford reprises Doc Indy one more time. It will not be much of a
new experience for him, seeing as he had already reprised Han Solo for the “Star
Wars” sequel trilogy of Episodes VII-IX. “Indy 5” will now also be the first
film in this franchise to be released by Disney (the other four were from
Paramount).
Banderas is a prime choice to
cast for an action-adventure epic like what Indy is sure to encounter. His filmography
has plenty of action films including the iconic El Mariachi of Robert Rodriguez’s
“Desperado” (1995) and as the legacy inheritor of Don Diego de la Vega in “The
Mask of Zorro” (1998). Given the time-shifting of Ford as Dr. Jones, the
setting of the film could potentially be in the mid-late 20th
Century, which would make for interesting discussion. Banderas was in “Dolittle”
(2020) with Robert Downey Jr. and in “Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” (2021). He has
also been cast for the cinematic adaption of the “Uncharted” PlayStation videogame
series from Sony Pictures, releasing in 2022 along with “Indiana Jones 5.”
While franchise co-creator Steven
Spielberg is still around as producer with Kathleen Kennedy and others from Lucasfilm,
he is relinquishing directing duties to James Mangold, who co-writes the script
with Jez and John-Henry Butterworth. One cannot look for a formidable filmmaker
with high potential like Mangold, who has two films nominated at the Academy
Award already. One of them is even a Marvel superhero film (of pre-acquisition
20th Century Fox), “Logan.” Just as amazing is that original “Indiana
Jones” theme composer John Williams is returning to score the production, given
he is now aged 89.
Image courtesy of JoBlo.com
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