There have been three pillars for the Indiana Jones franchise since the series began with 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark: star Harrison Ford, director Steven Spielberg, and executive producer/story writer George Lucas. Now, however, one of the pillars will be missing for the previously-announced Indiana Jones 5, as writer David Koepp (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Jurassic Park) has revealed to Collider that Lucas has no involvement.
“He’s not (involved), to my knowledge. I’ve had no contact with him.”
It should come as no surprise that Lucas is not involved, since he sold the Lucasfilm company in 2012 to Disney and had no involvement with last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens either.
In the same interview, Koepp went on to talk about the progress of the fifth film’s script and offered a light-hearted joke for its content
“I’m deeply immersed as we speak. All I can say is that there’s lots of aliens and Indy dies at the end (laughs)…”
He also revealed his hope for an October 2017 production start.
“It’s certainly OK for me and I’ll be ready, but my schedule isn’t the tough one. So I think October—I hope, I hope so. We’ll see. That’s a hard one to answer.”
Franchise veterans Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall will produce Indiana Jones 5. John Williams is expected to once again provide the music. Harrison Ford will once again don the fedora for the film with Steven Spielberg behind the camera. The movie is set for a July 19, 2019 release date.