The behind-the-scenes struggle of bringing “Indiana Jones 5” to life is already pretty extraordinary. Sure, the franchise seemed dead after the failure that was ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.’ But when it was announced that Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg were returning for one final film in the series, people couldn’t help but feel excited. But then the delays happened. And script issues were reported. Now, one of those writers who worked on the project is coming forward to help explain why ‘Indy 5’ is taking so damn long.
Den of Geek spoke with David Koepp, one of the more recent writers tasked with bringing “Indiana Jones” to the big screen. After a revolving door situation with writers coming and going, many wondered if the film would continue to get delayed until Harrison Ford and/or Steven Spielberg lost interest. However, the issue, in Koepp’s mind, is the fact that it’s just really hard to get everyone on the same proverbial page.
“I tried a couple different versions with Steven and they all had some good stuff about them and they all had some stuff that didn’t work, which happens,” he explained. “But it was just very hard to have everybody come together and have all the elements — Steven, Harrison, the script, and Disney — come together at once. And it didn’t.”
Enter James Mangold. After Koepp and Spielberg couldn’t figure it out, with other writers giving it a shot, as well, Spielberg ended up leaving the project and passing the reins off to Mangold. And considering Mangold’s writing background, the filmmaker was given a chance to take over scripting duties, as well. For Koepp, this served as a good chance to say his goodbyes.
“When James Mangold came in and Steven stepped out, that was a pretty logical breaking point,” Koepp said. “It’s a gracious time to step out the door because I think the last thing a new director wants is the old director’s writer. I mean, that’s a drag. The last thing you need is some guy sitting around with his arms folded saying, ‘Well, the way Steven would have done it is…’ I had one nice friendly conversation with him and then I’m sure he wanted to be able to move on anyway. Everybody was pretty polite, I thought.”
Now, as you might expect, all these script issues have been the primary factor in delaying the eventual “Indiana Jones 5.” Unfortunately, the delays just so happened to lead into the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen just about every major release lose a year in its production cycle. So, when the hell are we going to see “Indiana Jones 5?” That’s a really tough question to answer, as we don’t even know if films scheduled for this December will be released. We’ll just have to wait and see.