The Indiana Jones series of films began in 1981 with the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. The first four films were directed by Steven Spielberg. In 1992, the franchise expanded to a television series with The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. A fifth film is in development and is provisionally scheduled to be released in 2022.
About Indiana Jones in brief
The Indiana Jones series of films began in 1981 with the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. The first four films were directed by Steven Spielberg. In 1992, the franchise expanded to a television series with The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, portraying the character in his childhood and youth. A fifth film is in development and is provisionally scheduled to be released in 2022. Novelizations of the films have been published, as well as many novels with original adventures, including a series of German novels by Wolfgang Hohlbein. Numerous Indiana Jones video games have been released since 1982. The last installment of the series, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, was released in March 1996. The series was created by George Lucas and stars Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. It was an opportunity to create a modern version of the movie serials of the 1930s and 1940s. The film could reflect a science fiction 1950s B-movie, with aliens as the plot device. After learning that Joseph Stalin was interested in psychic warfare, Lucas decided to have Russians as the villains and aliens to have psychic powers. Lucas wanted Indiana to get married, which would allow Indiana Jones Sr to return to his son, Henry Jones, Jr. The character’s surname was changed to Jones in the film Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, released in 1984. In May 1977, Lucas was in Maui, trying to escape the enormous success of Star Wars. His friend and colleague Steven Spielberg was also there, on vacation from work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Lucas told him of an idea that was better than James Bond. Spielberg loved it, calling it ‘a James Bond film without the hardware’ and had the character’s name changed to ‘Indiana Jones’ He hired Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz to write the script as he knew of their interest in Indian culture. He had ideas regarding the Monkey King and a haunted castle, but eventually created the Sankara Stones. Lucas made the film a prequel as he did not want the Nazis to be the villains again. He hired writer Jeffrey Boam to write next three versions, the last of which was not completed until March 1996, and was not released until March 1997. Lucas said he would not make Independence Day three months later, and told Spielberg he would make the next installment later that year. He chose instead to produce The YoungIndianaJones.com, which explored Indiana in his early years. Ford played Indiana in one episode, narrating his adventures in 1920 Chicago. In December 1992, he realized that the scene opened up the possibility of a film with an older Indiana set in the 1950s. Ford disliked the new angle, telling Lucas: ‘No way am I being in a Steven Spielberg movie like E. T-Terrestrial’ Lucas wanted to make a story about a father-son relationship. He wanted the character to have a son seeking reconciliation with a father and a father seeking reconciling with a son. The story was turned into a script from October 1993 to May 1994, which Lucas wanted Jeb Stuart to write.
You want to know more about Indiana Jones?
This page is based on the article Indiana Jones published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
