Posted in: Disney, Movies | Tagged: disney, harrison ford, indiana jones, Indiana Jones 5, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, james mangold, lucasfilm

Indiana Jones 5: Director James Mangold on Mutt, Prologue & More

Since James Mangold took the directing reins from Steven Spielberg for the fifth Indiana Jones film in The Dial of Destiny, naturally, there will be several questions concerning the film's main character in Henry "Indy" Jones Jr (Harrison Ford) and what he's been up to since the events of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The maligned 2008 film not only marked the last franchise collaboration between Spielberg and creator George Lucas but also marked the latter stepping away creatively with Mangold, Jez, and John-Henry Butterworth penning the script.

'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' Will Reveal Fate of 'Crystal Skull's' Mutt Williams

As far as the fate of Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), the son of Indy and Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), introduced in Crystal Skull, Mangold shared with Entertainment Weekly audiences will "find out what happened," but couldn't offer anything more. In addition to Allen's return in Crystal Skull, the film also revealed that both Indy's father, Henry Jones Sr (Sean Connery), and friend, Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot), passed. Elliot died in 1992, while Connery was content to stay in retirement. The Dial of Destiny sees the return of John Rhys-Davies, who reprises his role of Sallah from 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark and 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Mangold reveals Dial of Destiny is an ode to the previous films opening in 1944 with a de-aged Ford with a "blast of classic Indy action, me doing my very best version of Steven, and Harrison doing his best version of being under 40." Following the prologue, the film resumes in the middle of the 1960s during the height of US-Soviet tensions. "I mean, 1969 is the beginning of now, really, in terms of technology and the space race," he said. "So, you have Cold Wars, nuclear power, intrigue, the lack of clear good guys and bad guys. In the same way, you have to be considerate about how you try and transpose a fairly simplistic kind of black-hat, white-hat sensibility into a period that is more complicated. We try to exploit that by jumping forward into 1969 to a hero who is used to a black and white world, [but finds himself] in a world that has gone gray."

For more, including how Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Helena factors in and what Indy means to Mangold, you can check out the rest of the EW interview here. Lucasfilm's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which also stars Antonio Banderas, Shaunette Renee Wilson, Thomas Kretschmann, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, and Mads Mikkelsen, comes to theaters on June 30, 2023.

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