5 Indiana Jones movies that never escaped development hell

Haunted castles? Monkey kings? Alien invaders? We went in search of details on the Indy films that failed to reach the big screen

By Phil Pirrello | June 29, 2023 | 1:00pm

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5 Indiana Jones movies that never escaped development hell

Harrison Ford filming Raiders of The Lost Ark Photo: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

We all know that the arrival of Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny marks Harrison Ford’s fifth and final entry in the enduring franchise, but how many of us know about previous attempts to create other Indy films? In the 42 years since Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark stormed the box office, multiple Indy projects have been developed under George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, but most of them were consigned to development hell.

We decided to grab our fedoras and leather jackets to do some excavating of our own. Turns out that some of these unfinished films about everyone’s favorite Nazi-punching archeologist are just as interesting and ambitious as those that reached theaters—and one of them, arguably, is even better. And in several cases, ideas from these lost projects ended up on screen in other films. Here are the results of our efforts to unearth the mysteries behind Indiana Jones.

An adventure set in a haunted castle

MovieClips - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - Escape from Castle Brunwald

famously features a sequence where Indy visits a castle to save his dad (the late Sean Connery). The genesis of that brief scene began with George Lucas wanting to do a follow-up to Temple Of Doom that would take place (partly) in a haunted castle or mansion. The late screenwriter Diane Thomas, then hot off the success of the Indy-esque adventure Romancing The Stone in 1984, was tapped to write the screenplay.While Lucas was an advocate for this tale, Spielberg was not; he rejected this potential sequel and its ghost story trappings since he already scratched that itch with Poltergeist, a movie he wrote and produced (and potentially ). Little is known about Thomas’ draft beyond the basic concept, though aspects of her untitled script were somewhat repurposed in another potential Indy sequel—Indiana Jones And The Monkey King. Speaking of…

Indiana Jones And The Monkey King

Indiana Jones and the Monkey King Part 2 of 2 | UNPRODUCED LIVE! | Lowcarbcomedy

Chris Columbus’ script featured a lengthy opening prologue set in Scotland, with Indy investigating a haunted castle. In fact, Indy would have come face-to-face with a specter—Baron Seamus Seagrove III—as this movie would firmly establish that ghosts were real in the world of Indiana Jones. Feeling like that was a narrative leap too far, even for a series where divine spirits spewed out of the lost Ark of the Covenant and helped melt a Nazi’s face, Spielberg once again played the “been there, done that” card with the whole paranormal aspect and the movie was shelved.Had Spielberg given Columbus’ draft the greenlight, fans would have seen Indy then embark on a quest to Africa, where the Monkey King presided, in a search for the Chinese equivalent of the Holy Grail. Dr. Jones would have encountered some truly out-there threats and villains, such as cannibal tribes and a Nazi with a robotic arm. The Last Crusade ending would take a page (or two) from Monkey King, with Indy finding the Monkey King and being presented with a similar “choose wisely” option.

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Indiana Jones And The Saucer Men From Mars

As Short Round would say, “Hold on to your potatoes,” because the journey from The Last Crusade to Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is a bumpy one through Development Hell. And it all starts with Lucas wanting Indy to encounter some little green men.After Last Crusade put a nearly perfect bow on the character and his adventures, Lucas—the story impetus for these films always started with him—hired Die Hard co-writer Jeb Stuart to write a follow-up set after the original trilogy. With the 1950s setting, Lucas wanted to put Indy through the lens of ’50s pulp sci-fi and introduce alien life to the franchise. Elements of Stuart’s script that would find their way into what would become The Crystal Skull included a Nevada-set action sequence, flesh-eating ants, and Indy tying the knot—though not with Raiders Of The Lost Ark’s Marion (Karen Allen), but rather a new love interest by the name of Dr. Elaine McGregor. Stuart’s fourth installment would have featured the return of Indy’s dad but no son for Indy or any Crystal Skull MacGuffins.Last Crusade and scribe Jeffrey Boam was then hired for a rewrite in the early 1990s, but the project was shut down once Spielberg saw . After watching that alien invasion story and believing that he and Lucas could not compete with it, as well as having done and , Spielberg wanted to avoid aliens but struggled to convince his long-time friend of that.

M. Night Shyamalan’s Indiana Jones movie

Little is known about what the Signs and Sixth Sense writer-director had in mind for a fourth Indiana Jones movie, but the filmmaker was approached by Spielberg to develop Indy’s next adventure. While promoting his 2021 horror movie, Old, Shyamalan—whose favorite movie is Raiders Of The Lost Ark—teased that his Indy IV would have been a considerable departure from what the previous movies did.“It was a darker idea,” the filmmaker told . “I do have my notebooks; I still have those with all my ideas for that movie. I did have a take. I talked to everybody involved and it was so nascent at that time, that movie. Everyone hadn’t gotten into a room yet. They were bouncing ideas off of me. So everyone had different ideas of what to do … and I had this idea.”

Indiana Jones And The City Of The Gods

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL | Official Trailer | Paramount Movies

Shortly after the release of Crystal Skull, a 2003 draft of leaked onto the internet and fans rallied behind it as being a much better sequel than the one they got. If early reviews are any indication, it could have been a more fitting finale for our hero than The Dial Of Destiny.