Indiana Jones returns to the big screen for the first time in what will be 13 years next year, with Harrison Ford due to portray the iconic archaeologist for a fifth outing. Fans have high hopes that Indiana Jones 5 will turn out to be a more fitting final chapter for the character than 2008’s The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but while this surely has to be Ford’s last time playing Indy, there’s no way Disney is letting the franchise die after this. In fact, we’re now hearing that the studio has figured out how to continue the brand without its legendary leading man.
Sources close to WGTC – the same ones who told us an Aladdin sequel is being developed, which we now know to be true – say that Disney is planning a female-led Indiana Jones spinoff TV show. We Got This Covered has been told that the protagonist of the series will be Indy’s daughter, who will be introduced in the fifth film. Steven Spielberg is expected to board the project as a producer and as you’d expect, the show will explore the aforementioned daughter picking up where her dad left off and revolve around her own adventures and exploits.
If this turns out to be the case, it could be a smart way for Disney to move the franchise forward. After all, Spielberg has previously dismissed rumors that someone else could be found to replace Ford, which left the next generation angle as the obvious way to go. However, no one wants to see Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt – Indy’s son – brought back from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Creating a daughter for Indy, then, makes a lot of sense. It also fits in with Disney’s efforts to increase the number of female leads across all their franchises (see: Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe).
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard that there’s more from Indy to come after the fifth film, either. Disney CEO Bob Iger has promised that the movie “won’t be just a one-off” and Spielberg has also voiced his openness to a female Indy. Likewise, these plans probably would be locked in by now seeing as production is expected to begin on Indiana Jones 5 this April. So, some more concrete news about the Jones family’s future could reach us as soon as the spring.
But for now, at least, it seems that the Mouse House still has big plans for the property and given that this intel comes to us from the same sources who also told us about the Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk TV shows heading to Disney Plus well before they were announced, we’ve no reason to doubt it.
