Lucasfilm Says It Would "Never" Make Indiana Jones Without Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford was 38 years old when he began filming Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. Fast forward to the as-yet untitled Indiana Jones 5 and Ford is now 79. Safe to say, he’s not getting any younger.

We know very little about Indiana Jones 5. Scheduled to release in 2023, it’s the first Indiana Jones film not to be directed by Steven Spielberg and written by George Lucas and whilst the film is clearly creatively innovating in some ways, there’s one person the franchise would not continue without: Ford himself.

Speaking of Lucasfilm, are you hyped for Obi-Wan Kenobi? Remind yourself of the epic trailer below as we await the series premiere.

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy recently confirmed as much. Kennedy reflected on the commercial failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story by throwing actor Alden Ehrenreich under the bus, stating that it’s impossible to replicate Ford’s work. In Ehrenreich’s defense, he did a great job. His performance was not the issue with Solo. Regardless, don’t expect to see a young Indiana Jones in the future.

Speaking with Vanity Fair, Kennedy said, “There should be moments along the way when you learn things. [Solo] may have certainly been a learning moment. Some people have talked about how, well, maybe Solo should have been a TV show. But even doing Solo as a TV show without Harrison Ford as Han Solo ... It's the same thinking. Maybe I should have recognised this before. We would never make Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford. Having just finished the fifth movie, I can tell you, there wasn't a day I wasn't on set where I wasn't like, 'Yes -- this is Indiana Jones.'”

She went on to add, “Maybe I'm closer to the DNA of Indy, and always have been, than I was when I came into Star Wars, because now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can't do that. You get excited by these things, and you want to revisit things you want. You want to have that feeling again, and you're trying to resurrect that.”

I can’t imagine Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford. That being said, Ford would likely be well into his 80s by the time a potential sixth film came around which calls into question whether a sixth film will ever see the light of day.