‘Indiana Jones 5’ Will Miss 2020 Release Date (EXCLUSIVE)

By Brent Lang

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Indiana Jones will not be riding back into theaters on July 10, 2020.

The fifth film in the adventure series will miss its original release date, Variety has learned. Filming was supposed to begin in April of 2019 in the United Kingdom, but sources close to the production say that shooting will no longer start next spring and will have to be pushed back by months, if not a year. Potential crew members have already been informed of the delay.

Part of the issue is that the key members of the creative team have yet to sign off on a finished script. Collider reported on Thursday that Jonathan Kasdan, son of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” scribe Lawrence Kasdan, has been enlisted to deliver a new draft. A deal has yet to close to bring the writer on board, but it looks as though he will soon join the project. David Koepp (“Jurassic Park”) took the first pass at the script. At one point, the fifth Indiana Jones was supposed to hit theaters in 2019.

Insiders stress that both Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford remain committed to revisiting the beloved franchise about the globe-trotting archaeologist. Spielberg, however, has a full dance card of projects in development and it’s possible one of them will slide in front of the “Indiana Jones” sequel. The Oscar-winning director is in pre-production on a remake of “West Side Story” and is also toying with making “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara,” a historical drama with Mark Rylance.

Ford will next be part of the voice cast for “Secret Life of Pets 2.”

Disney, the studio that’s releasing the fifth Indiana Jones movie, declined to comment. The studio has yet to officially pull “Indiana Jones 5” from the release calendar or announce a new date.