Harrison Ford Doesn’t Care That People Hate His Biggest Franchise Flop
Harrison Ford insists that fan reception following Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had no impact on filming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Harrison Ford has starred in some of the greatest films of all time, though his return appearances in classic franchises have been to rapidly diminishing returns. After hanging up his fedora and whip following Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, nearly 20 years later the star returned for a fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. The heavily-requested return didn’t go quite as anyone planned, but in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter Ford claims that none of that negativity was brought over to the upcoming fifth film.
In addressing the issues that plagued the fourth film, Harrison Ford explains “[The critics] were harsh on it, but what are they doing now? I understand. But those were their rules — not [director Steven Spielberg’s and co-writer George Lucas’] rules. They were imposing their rules on what the movie should be.”
While it’s true that Harrison Ford’s fourth outing wasn’t as loved as the original trilogy, critics were actually quite kind to the film. It was the general movie audience that made memes out of the infamous refrigerator scene and Shia LeBeouf as a vine-swinging king of the jungle. Thankfully, the carpenter-turned-movie star has never been one to let the opinions of others effect him.
Harrison Ford insists that remains the case, telling the interviewer that “I don’t feel it’s necessary to address those issues. I think that everyone has a right to their opinion. The film was not as successful as we wanted it to be, perhaps. But it didn’t create an attitude or a behavior that carried over into this film.”
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth film in the pulp-action franchise, releases later this year and it has a lot of work to do in order to win back the general audience. At this point it’s been 15 years since Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Harrison Ford is now 80 years old. The upcoming movie is likely to be the last time Ford portrays the world’s most famous archaeologist.
Directed by James Mangold, known for Logan, Dial of Destiny moves Indiana forward to 1969 and the Space Race. Harrison Ford is joined by Phoebe Waller-Bridge playing Helena Shaw, Jones’ goddaughter, and Mads Mikkelson as a former Nazi now working for NASA. In addition, Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davis, Shaunette Renee-Wilson, Thomas Kretchmann, and Toby Jones are part of the main cast.
Notably absent from the cast this time around is Shia LeBeouf, who played Indiana’s son Mutt in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The mercurial actor made remarks of his own about the quality of the fourth film years after its release, which combined with his erratic behavior in the ensuing decade likely left him out of Disney’s plans for the franchise. Harrison Ford remains the only star to appear in every film of the series and is, outside of any cameos, the only returning star from the last film.
Though audiences ended up hating Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Harrison Ford’s next outing looks to erase the film from existence as much as possible. When Dial of Destiny is released on June 30th, fans will discover for themselves if Ford redeemed his greatest character. Hopefully the movie will include a sly comment about a refrigerator as acknowledgement over the stupidest scene in movie history.
