Steven Spielberg Regrets Quitting Tom Cruise’s Oscar Winning Movie For Harrison Ford’s Worst Indiana Jones Movie Ever
The exploits of Dr. Henry Walton’s Indiana Jones Jr., played by actor Harrison Ford from the franchise’s start, is the focus of the Indiana Jones media franchise, which George Lucas created. The franchise currently consists of five films, a prequel television series, games, comics, and tie-in novels. The first four films in the series, which Steven Spielberg directed, were released between 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark and 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
James Mangold, who co-wrote the narrative for the recent film Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny with Jez Butterworth, David Koepp, and John-Henry Butterworth, served as the director. While Steven Spielberg and George Lucas participated as executive producers, they were not involved in the making of the film. But did you know Spielberg was unhappy with the way Indiana Jones 3 turned out?
Steven Spielberg on picking Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones over Tom Cruise’s Rain Man
Director Steven Spielberg directed the four movies in the Indiana Jones franchise but had once shared that if he could go back in time, he would not pick directing Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade over 1988’s Rain Man.
Spielberg mentioned his regret in Steven Spielberg: Interviews, Revised and Updated via The Playlist;
“With Rain Man, I spent almost half a year developing it with Dustin and Tom Cruise and Ron Bass. I kept trying to get the screenplay to be better and better while having a stop date of the 12th of January, at which time I would have to start shooting Indy 3, or we couldn’t make our Memorial Day 1989 release date.”
The director further added,
“When I saw that I was going to go past January 12th and that I would have to step down from Indy 3, the promise I made to George was more important than making Rain Man. So, with great regret, because I really wanted to work with Dustin and Tom, I stepped down from the movie.”
Steven Spielberg handed over notes to Barry Levinson, who then directed Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman starring in Rain Man, which went on to win four Academy Awards.
Harrison Ford was reluctant to do Indiana Jones 5 without Steven Spielberg
Harrison Ford, who has been the face of the Indiana Jones franchise since its inception, appeared in the fifth movie of the franchise recently, but without Steven Spielberg directing it.
However, in an interview with BBC back in 2016, Ford, when talking about the fifth installment of the movie, mentioned that he does not want to do the movie without Spielberg.
“I’ve always thought there was an opportunity to do another. But I didn’t want to do it without Steven [Spielberg]. And I didn’t want to do it without a really good script. And happily we’re working on both. Steven is developing a script now that I think we’re going to be very happy with.”
However, Steven Spielberg did not direct the fifth installment of Indiana Jones and it was reported by Variety in 2020 that the decision to step back from the franchise was his own as he wanted to pass on the reins to new filmmakers; thus, James Mangold helmed the fifth installment of the franchise.
Steven Spielberg dislikes Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Director Steven Spielberg, who directed the first four movies in the Indiana Jones franchise, was asked about what had been mentioned in 1989 during an interview with The Sun Sentinel via Digital Fix;
“I wasn’t happy with the second [Indiana Jones] film at all. It was too dark, too subterranean, and much too horrific. I thought it out-poltered Poltergeist. There’s not an ounce of my own personal feeling in the Temple of Doom.”
However, people assumed that with time his opinion about the movie could have changed, but unfortunately, it remains the same in 2017. He shared with Susan Lacey that Temple of Doom wasn’t the kind of movie he wanted to make.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is said to be the only movie in the franchise with the most mixed reviews.
