Disney announced this week that the long-gestating fifth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise is in pre-production and slated for theatrical release in July of 2022.

Well, the hope is for a theatrical release. Who knows what the lay of the land will look like in 18 months. By then, the coronavirus vaccine might have already turned us into flesh-eating maniacs soothed only by show tunes.

The good news is that Steven Spielberg will NOT be directing and George Lucas will have nothing to do with the script. After the catastrophe that was 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a movie so embarrassing, so uncomfortable to watch, even a completist like myself won’t go near it (and I own A View to a Kill), it was definitely time for some new blood, which Disney has found in James Mangold, a terrific, unpretentious action-director whose idea of a man is an actual man. He won me over with Cop Land all the way back in 1997. Since, he’s directed Walk the Line (2005), 3:10 to Yuma (2007), Logan (2017), and Ford v Ferrari (2019) — all great movies.

Mangold also wrote Logan, Walk the Line, and Cop Land is supposedly writing Indy V.

In the form of old blood, Harrison Ford will return in the title role. He turns 80 in 2022, but appears to be in great shape. Eighty isn’t what it used to be. I’m told Clint Eastwood refers to Harrison Ford as a “whippersnapper.”

For some perspective though, in 2022 Harrison Ford will be 22 years older than Sean Connery was when Sean Connery played Indiana Jones’s father in 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

We don’t know anything else about casting for Indy V. Will Karen Allen return as Marion? Will Shia LeWhat’sHisName return as Mutt? If you recall, Indy married Marion at the end of Crystal Skull and Mutt was being groomed to step into Indy’s shoes. Of course, they were both the worst part of that dreadful movie. Let me be clear that none of this was Karen Allen’s fault. Never has a character been as misused as Marion Ravenwood was in Crystal Skull. Shi LeWhat’sHisName almost always sucks.

Crystal Skull took place in 1957, so if the timeline is honored, Indy V will take place in what — 1969? 1970? 1971?

It’s things like that make me glad Spielberg and Lucas are out. We’re also told this will “conclude” the story. Well, after the LAST Crusade, who believes that?

Now all we have to worry about is who’s really directing Indy V. Will Mangold be given the creative room and space he’s earned, or will Kathleen StarWarsKiller Kennedy push him around and ruin Indiana Jones like she did Star Wars with all her shallow insecurities and neuroses?

Would anyone be at all surprised if Indy V opened with Indiana Jones announcing he’s a woman and for the next two hours we had to grimace at Harrison Ford outrunning giant boulders wearing a summer dress and high heels?

I suspect Indy 5 will be like all the other shit Disney creates: hyper-political, stumbling around on the crutch of nostalgia, and 20 minutes too long. It will make a billion dollars, though … I mean, if the coronavirus vaccine hasn’t turned us all into flesh eaters.

The only thing giving me hope is James Mangold.

Keep the talentless, clueless Kathleen Kennedy away from him!

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