The best part of the announcement? Indiana Jones himself, 78-year-old actor Harrison Ford (American Graffiti (1973), Witness (1985), The Fugitive (1993), Air Force One (1997), What Lies Beneath (2000), 42 (2013)), will play the role of Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. for the fifth time.
Ford — who was recently in the news again for his 2020 Star Warsforce ghost comment — is perhaps best known for his role as Millennium Falcon pilot, smuggler, Rebel, and love of Princess Leia’s life, Han Solo, in Lucasfilm‘s Star Warsfranchise. He last played the iconic role of Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
Now, however, it’s possible that Ford could actually reprise Indiana Jones not once, but twice, in 2021 thanks to a new video game from the recently revamped Lucasfilm Games division. On January 12, Bethesda Games shared the following teaser trailer for the upcoming video game to their Twitter account.
StarWars.com shared these details about the new project, about which little is known:
Indiana Jones. We always knew, someday, you’d come walking back through our door.
In major news for fans of the cinematic icon, Lucasfilm Games announced today that a new Indiana Jones game will be swinging our way, being developed by the award-winning studio MachineGames and executive produced by game industry icon Todd Howard of Bethesda Games Studios. The game will tell a wholly original, standalone tale set at the height of the career of the famed adventurer.
Now, of course, the question is whether or not Ford will be involved in the Bethesda project, perhaps as the voice of his iconic character. ScreenRant pointed out this is unlikely, given Ford’s voice acting history:
To date, Harrison Ford has done only one video game role among three total voiceover roles in his acting career, according to Behind The Voice Actors. He voiced Han Solo in both 1978’s The Star Wars Holiday Special and 2016’s Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but the latter, his only game credit, is a technicality. Lego The Force Awakens simply reused audio from the movie, so Ford never actually recorded anything new for it. Ford’s only other voiceover role came via Rooster, an animated dog in 2019’s The Secret Life of Pets 2. If Ford does voice Indy in the game, it would be a career first.
Their coverage continued, noting:
Of all the video games in the Indiana Jones franchise, only three have featured a fully voiced Indiana Jones. Each time, the character was played by a different voice actor: John Armstrong in Staff of Kings, David Esch in 2003’s Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb, and Doug Lee in 1999’s Indiana Jonesand the Infernal Machine.
It is, however, worth noting that when the last Indiana Jones video game released, Ford had not yet shared his thoughts about the Indiana Jones character dying with him. Presumably, he was only referring to live-action movies, not the supplemental video game franchise, but still, it would certainly be intriguing to hear Ford’s voice in this highly-touted new project.
As far as the fifth Indiana Jonesfilm goes, fans can only hope that the iconic character‘s journey continues along the same incredible path as it always has in the fifth installment. While it will be hard to top the success of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) or Temple of Doom (1984), the new Indiana Jones movie has fans incredibly excited for what’s to come in the franchise.Â
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Credit: Lucasfilm
