Disney Has Figured Out a Way to Reboot ‘Indiana Jones'

When the Walt Disney Company purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, it primarily acquired two massively popular and lucrative properties: Star Wars and Indiana Jones. While the company has managed to transform Star Wars into an increasingly interconnected series of spinoff shows, Indiana Jones is more resistant to franchise expansion, especially since star Harrison Ford is determined that no one else will play the character, ever. It turns out that Disney plans to reboot Indiana Jones in a different medium: video games.

Indiana Jones with mist in Raiders of the Lost Ark — Credit: Lucasfilm

In a recent interview with Axios, Disney Global Games & Interactive Experiences chief Sean Shoptaw revealed that the company plans to continue partnering with video game developers like Insomniac Games and Second Dinner rather than acquiring Electronic Arts, as has been rumored.

Shoptaw addressed those rumors, saying, “There’s a lot of conversation around: ‘Disney should go do this,’ and a lot of that’s tied to big acquisitions and things,” and while he did not outright say that Disney CEO Bob Iger was not considering buying EA, he said, “We’re very happy with where we are now strategically in the work that we’re doing.”

Even more interestingly, Shoptaw revealed that Machine Games (a Microsoft company) and Bethesda executive producer Todd Howard managed to secure the license to make an Indiana Jones video game through a convincing pitch, saying, “They pitched us a really compelling vision for Indy, and that resonated.”

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) smiling in a jungle — Credit: Lucasfilm

Word of Bethesda Indiana Jones game has been floating around for months with little confirmation or word of what the Wolfenstein developer might be doing with it, but it seems increasingly clear that Disney and Lucasfilm view rebooting the series as a video game franchise the best option.

There are a lot of precedents for this. Much like its sister franchise, Star Wars, there have been many video game adaptions of Indiana Jones through the decades, beginning with the Atari 2600 adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

Raiders of the Lost Ark video game adaptation for Atari 2600 — Credit: Atari

There have been multiple adaptations of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989), and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), including several Lego Indiana Jones games. LucasArts (now re-branded as Lucasfilm Games) has also produced a number of original stories, like The Fate of Atlantis and The Infernal Machine.

Screenshot from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis video game — Credit: LucasArts

The most recent Indiana Jones game to date was Indiana Jones Adventure World, a Facebook game in which the title character only appeared in brief cameos.

Screenshot of Indiana Jones Adventure World game, including a rolling boulder — Credit: Zynga

However, now that the Indiana Jones films have sputtered to a finish with the underwhelming Dial of Destiny (and there appear to be no plans to revive the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles), it makes sense that Disney and Lucasfilm would turn to Machine Games and Bethesda to reboot the franchise as a video game series. Since Harrison Ford is unwilling to keep performing and is able to veto recasting the character, pivoting into video games is the logical thing to do.

Inside the Magic reached out to Disney for comment, but has not heard back by the time of publishing.

Do you have favorite Indiana Jones video game? Let’s hear it in the comments below!