Harrison Ford is the only Indiana Jones, says Indy 5 producer

For years after Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull saw Harrison Ford reprise the role of the crusading archaeologist, rumors swirled of an Indiana Jones reboot that would star a younger actor as a younger Indy. (Specifically, rumors pointed swirled that the “younger actor”would be Chris Pratt, who is tied with Idris Elba as everyone’s favorite Internet casting gossip item.) But with the promise of a septuagenarian Indiana Jones in 2019’s upcoming fivequel, longtime franchise producer Frank Marshall has promised that the only person who will ever play Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford.

Marshall was accepting the Producer of the Decade award at CinemaCon, and his conversation about Indy 5 also referred to his work as a producer on the Bourne franchise. “Both in the Jason Bourne series and on Indiana Jones, we are not going to do the Bond thing,” said Marshall. “We think those characters are iconic, and those are the only actors who can play that.”

The fifth Indy film is still in early pre-production, Marshall said. “We’re just getting the deal together,” he explained. “It’s going to be two to three years.” That will make Ford about 75 or 76, but Marshall isn’t worried about his star’s prowess. “He wasn’t too old for Force Awakens,” Marshall said.

Worth pointing out that Marshall is also a producer of The Bourne Legacy, where Jeremy Renner didn’t actually play Jason Bourne, but did play an intrinsically Bourne-like figure able to leap across rooftops and do cool fights with household objects. So there’s plenty of room for Indy 5 to introduce a new Indiana Jones-y character to take over the reins from Ford. We’ll find out in 2019, when the film is slated to hit theaters.