We’re nearly two months out from Harrison Ford’s final crusade as cinema’s favorite archaeologist, with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny primed for a release early this summer, and we doubt the nostalgia bone will get tickled any harder this year. With Indy going back to his Nazi-whipping roots in an adventure that could house the highest stakes yet, it looks like director James Mangold is ready to prove doubters wrong.
But doubters are a stubborn bunch, and while rebooting classic franchises can admittedly be an understandable reason to get nervous (especially in this case, considering what Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ended up being), sometimes we wish they would drop the apprehensions and hop on to the more-than-justified hype train in front of them.
So who better to put those nerves at ease than Steven Spielberg himself? Surely, if anyone’s word should be taken with an entire dump truck of salt, it’s the king of Indiana Jones and blockbusters.
In an interview with Variety, Spielberg revealed that he got the chance to catch an executive screening of the upcoming swansong, and the consensus from the famed filmmaker is two, big, whopping thumbs up.
“Bob Iger had a screening for a lot of the Disney executives, and I came to the screening along with the director James Mangold. Everybody loved the movie. It’s really, really a good Indiana Jones film. I’m really proud of what Jim has done with it.”
With Spielberg officially slapping his stamp of approval onto Dial of Destiny, it’s hard to imagine anyone having quantifiable reservations about the film at this point. Indeed, the aforementioned hype train just had the biggest possible piece of coal dropped into it, and all we have to do now is wait; a task that’s getting much, much harder by the minute.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will release to theaters on June 30.