James Mangold has been brought on board to direct Indiana Jones 5 and he has teased how he could approach a franchise like this one.
Indiana Jones is one of the most famous movie franchise’s in history with its original trilogy being particularly beloved. Steven Speilberg won’t be directing the fifth entry of the George Lucas created franchise but he is returning to produce the film with James Mangold directing.
Mangold, who is known for his much loved Logan, was asked how he will approach Indiana Jones 5 by ComicBook.com and while he replied: “I can’t comment on anything like that,” he did go on to explain how his approach to a franchise like Indy won’t change from how he currently does things:
“But like in all my work, I’m always trying to find an emotional center to operate from. I think the most important thing is, in an age when franchises have become a commodity, that serving the same thing again. At least for me, in the dances I’ve had with any franchises, serving the same thing again, the same way, usually just produces a longing for the first time you ate it. Meaning, it makes an audience wish that they just had the first one over again. So you have to push something to someplace new, while also remembering the core reasons why everyone was gathered. And to use Logan as an example of that, when you’re dealing in a world of a very pressured franchise.”
SEE ALSO: Indiana Jones 5 pushed back until after Harrison Ford’s 80th birthday
Going forward with his Logan example, he said: “For all of the things, and there were many that I freed myself from in the canon, in the baggage, to try and make the best story, the core values of Logan, of Wolverine, and Charles Xavier and the X-Men, were something that I felt we never abandoned. The core ideas of their honor, their sense of duty, and the uniqueness of this particular set of characters that they were outcasts, oddities. Beings that had no home in this world, and yet we’re trying to do good. Were trying to do something right and find their way. Those core issues were at the heart of the movie. And in any franchise I take in, I’d always be trying to capture and make sure that we preserve those core ideas that are at the center, because that’s why these stories are more than franchises. They’re the fairy tales of our contemporary culture.”
Fans will certainly be pleased to hear this from Mangold. If he can create something that feels fresh and new for Indy but also keeps what makes the character and the franchise special, he should be on to a winner. Fingers crossed.