Steven Spielberg is not one to rest on his laurels.
Throughout his decades-spanning career behind the lens, the esteemed filmmaker has fostered a sense of child-like wonder in his audiences, and his genre-defining work on Jaws, Jurassic Park and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, to name but three, continue to enthrall and inspire even to this day.
Spielberg’s latest feature, Ready Player One, is currently playing in theaters (our review), and while collecting an honorary prize at last night’s Empire Awards in London, England, the director announced that his next creative venture, Indiana Jones 5, will begin shooting in the United Kingdom early next year ahead of its planned release in 2020.
It’s always worth the trip when I get to work with this deep bench of talent coming out of the UK. The actors, and the crew, the chippies, the sparks, the drivers — everybody who has helped me make my movies here, and will continue helping me make my movies here when I come back in April 2019 to make the fifth Indiana Jones movie right here.
Indeed, a spring 2019 shoot also ensures that Spielberg’s untitled sequel is on course to make its primetime release date in the summer of 2020 – July 10th, to be specific – though the legendary filmmaker refrained from mentioning any plot details in his acceptance speech.
He did, however, call out the current Time’s Up movement that’s sweeping across Hollywood and other entertainment industries across the globe.
Thank you, Time’s Up. We were very much on board from the very beginning, my wife Kate and I. This is more important than any of us can ever really realize. I think in 10 years we’ll look back and realise what a watershed moment we are all experiencing together, 2017 to 2018. It’s extraordinary what’s happening right now. The fact that women who have had no representation and have not been able to find the support or the courage to step forward, now they will have representation and they will have the support. Time’s Up means it’s time up. This is it. This is the end of the way things were, it will never be that way again hopefully.
Circling back to Indiana Jones 5, though, we understand Harrison Ford is set to reprise his role as the legendary archaeologist, while Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt Williams has been ruled out entirely. And perhaps that’s a good thing? We’ll find out on July 10th, 2020.