The International House of Mojo

It's a slow news day for games, so let's talk some more about Indiana Jones 4, or rather, what Indiana Jones 4 might have been. You may know that one of the more famous of the many scripts that were written for the movie was the rejected draft by Frank Darabont. A Stephen King fan site recently held an interview with Darabont (He was the man behind the film version of The Shawshank Redemption) and his time spent on the Indy 4 project was brought up:

Lilja: ... I read that you where involved in the 4th Indy Indiana Jones? How does it feel to work on something like that and then find out that they aren?t going to use your script?

Frank Darabont: Pretty awful. It was a wasted year or more of my life, and I have only so many years to devote. I worked very closely with Steven Spielberg, applied all my passion and skill, and gave him a script that he loved. He was ready to shoot it that very year -- 2003, I think? Maybe 2004? Well, no matter. The point is, Steven was ecstatic. We both were. It was going to be his next film. He told me it was the best script he'd read since Raiders of the Lost Ark. That's a quote, and I'll always treasure it. As a screenwriter, you dream of making a guy like Steven Spielberg happy and excited. Then George Lucas read it, didn't like it, and threw ice water on the whole thing. The project went down in flames. Steven and I looked like accident victims the day we got that call. I certainly don't blame Steven for it. He wasn't in a position to overrule George, and wouldn't have overruled him even if he could. He and George have been close friends for a long time, and they've had an agreement for years that no Indiana Jones film will ever get made unless they both completely agreed on the script. It was just such an awful surprise, after all my hopes and effort. I really felt I'd nailed it, and so did Steven.

Yes, as you can imagine, I would rank that very high on my list of professional disappointments. More than that, it was emotionally devastating. For somebody who, as a young man, was inspired to want to be a filmmaker by Steven and George, by movies like THX-1138 and Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, it was the ultimate kick in the nuts. In fact, it's the main reason I quit my career as a "writer-for-hire" (writing for other people for a living). It's not the only reason, but certainly a main reason. I swore never to go through that again. From now on, my intention is to write only for myself on projects that I produce or direct.

Emphasis mine. Why does my gut tell me that when Indiana Jones concludes his final adventure next summer and legions of fans are inevitably disappointed by it, everyone will hail the Darabont treatment as some kind of lost masterpiece? Not a fair assumption to make at all, but hey, George Lucas bashers are obviously in need of more things to get livid about. Interesting story, anyway.

Source: Liljas Library