Today's News: Indy crosses over to the Dark Side

Another newsflash I posted on MS the other day:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/152235/disney_verwerft_rechten_indiana_jones

No real surprise here, since we knew Disney had acquired the rights to all Lucasfilm properties when they took over the company. The exact nature of their influence was unknown until now though. It's interesting Disney made a deal that also works in Paramount's favor, instead of taking it all for itself. This probably has something to do with the fact that Disney won't actually be producing any new Indiana Jones films, but will merely stick to distributing and marketing. So that means Paramount will have to do the hard work which makes Disney all the big bucks, in which case the latter studio will have to cut the former some slack financially if they're to stay on equal terms.

But will this mean the production of Indiana Jones 5, which has been rumoured to be in development for five years now, will soon kick into full gear? Definitely. As we've noticed in the case of Star Wars, Lucasfilm's other major franchise, Disney proved all too eager to start exploiting it pronto. It seems we'll be getting no less than six(!) new Star Wars movies over the next decade, so I'm betting at least one Indy movie is a given and the studio will be announcing a release date soon, as they did with Star Wars Episode VII (as long as J.J. Abrams stays away from this project I'm cool with that!). But will Harrison Ford star as the titular archeologist again? In all honesty, I hope not. Though I agree he's the ultimate and original Indy, I've always envisioned the Indiana Jones persona to be similarly adaptable as, say, the James Bond character. People no doubt viewed the change in actor when Sean Connery quit the 007 role as sacrilege too at first, but some of the following Bond actors proved equally up to the task. Why would the same not be possible in the case of Indy? Do we really need to drag poor old Harrison into this every time? Credibility was already stretched in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in that regard. At the same time, I don't recall so many fans complaining about The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. To my mind, as long as the story, action and fun is well written and perfectly executed, Indiana Jones will survive the departure of Ford just fine. My only fear is that Shia LaBeouf will don the fedora and whip next, and that certainly is not a delightful prospect...