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Credit: LucasfilmThe first four Indiana Jones movies have been pulled from the Disney+ streaming platform, all but confirming that the Mouse House is canceling any future plans for the iconic franchise.
Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989), and Indiana Jones And The Crystal Skull (2008) have all been removed from the Disney+ catalog.
Attempting to click on the franchise character via a browser results in a message reading, “Sorry, content you are trying to access is not available currently. You will be re-directed to Disney+ Home.”
Related: Indiana Jones Ceases Public Presence, Effective Immediately
The only Indiana Jones content still available on the streaming platform is The Dial of Destiny (2023), the sole theatrical film in the series produced by Disney, and Timeless Heroes (2023), a documentary about actor Harrison Ford and the character released in conjunction with the James Mangold film.
On one hand, this is pretty surprising: Indiana Jones is one of the world’s most famous and beloved adventure series and a huge part of Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012. Along with Star Wars and Willow, the Mouse spent over $4 billion to get the rights to the franchise, meaning the company must want to recoup its investment at some point.
However, The Dial of Destiny, which was heavily promoted as the final movie to feature Harrison Ford in the role, was a huge box office flop.
The movie is conservatively estimated to have lost Disney $146 million; combined with it being one of the most expensive movies ever made and the apparent indifference of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to returning to the franchise, it seems the franchise might be being written off as a loss.
It is also worth noting that the first four Indy films were produced by Paramount Pictures, which still owns the distribution rights. Disney was able to stream the movies due to a deal with its rival company, but it appears that the Mouse was no longer willing to pony up the money to renew it.
Oddly, the movies are not streaming on Paramount+, either, meaning that the only way to stream the films is to purchase or rent them from Apple or Amazon Prime Video.
Related: ‘Indiana Jones’ Inspires Real-Life Buried Ancient Roman Treasure Discovery
2024 seems to be a pretty dark year for the franchise. Four of the five movies are not easily accessible to fans, while the Young Indiana Jones TV series seems in constant limbo and basically forgotten.
Harrison Ford has made it clear that he isn’t coming back to don the fedora, and George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and John Williams all also seem to have given their farewell to the series. At this point, all fans have going for them is the upcoming Great Circle game, which hopefully will be enough to tide them over.
Do you think Disney has officially canceled any further Indiana Jones projects?