Spielberg, Lucas & Ford Talk New ‘Indiana Jones’

(August 21, 2006) — Details on the upcoming fourth installment in the ?Indiana Jones? series have been kept pretty hush hush.

So when Harrison Ford, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg sit down to dish some ?Indy? dirt, the fans listen.

Empire, a British movie mag, scored a sitdown with the ?Indiana Jones? triumvirate to talk about the upcoming movie, as part of the magazine?s massive ?Indiana Jones? 25th anniversary coverage.

And what they found out is the next installment may be a tad controversial.

?We?re basically going to do The Phantom Menace,? Lucas told Empire. ?People?s expectations are way higher than you can deliver. You could just get killed for the whole thing?We would do it for fun and just take the hit with the critics and the fans…But nobody wants to get into it unless they are really happy with it.?

But as Lucas explained, the ?damned if you do, damned if you don?t? situation has freed up an idea for a plot that was originally deemed too incendiary.

?I discovered a McGuffin,? Lucas continued, still reluctant to name what exactly the McGuffin would be. ?I told the guys about it and they were a little dubious about it, but it?s the best one we?ve ever found? Unfortunately, it was a little too ?connected? for the others. They were afraid of what the critics would think. They said, ?Can?t we do it with a different McGuffin? Can?t we do this?? and I said ?No?. So we pottered around with that for a couple of years. And then Harrison really wanted to do it and Steve said, ?Okay?. I said, ?We?ll have to go back to that original McGuffin and take out the offending parts of it and we?ll still use that area of the supernatural do deal with it.?

For those who don?t know, a McGuffin is defined as ?a plot device that motivates the characters and advances the story, but has little other relevance to the story itself.?One example familiar to most movie fans would be the briefcase in ?Pulp Fiction? or the rabbit?s foot in ?Mission: Impossible 3.?

?Hopefully it will be different in all the right ways and the same in all the familiar ways,? Spielberg said.

According to the article, Lucas said filming is slated to begin in 2007 and the movie will hit theaters in 2008. However, getting the gang back together is a tricky proposition.

?Before I was just working with Steven and Harrison. Now everybody?s a superstar, so it?s a little bit more difficult than it was then,? Lucas told Empire.

But Indy himself is confident all will work out just fine.

“There?s a good chance it will happen,” assures Ford. “There are things left for this character to do.”

For more from the “Indiana Jones” gang, visit empire.com.

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