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As we enter the final month of Mojo being able to use this movie as Styrofoam peanuts for filling the front page with, Disney keeps the promotional hose running with seven character posters that proudly declare, "We are capable of clicking Copy and Paste":

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Meanwhile, Disney Plus subscribers can kiss goodbye to those miserable days when their TV ever didn't have Indy on it, as today is the day that the four Spielberg installments as well as The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones became available on the service. For how long, who knows, but I'm sure you'll have at least until Dial of Destiny comes out to binge, purge, and binge again.

We elitists, of course, will be sticking to our UHDs, where the iconic sight of George 'Mac' McHale choosing not to stand up will be faithfully reproduced under the fullest color space, the maximum bit rate, and the highest dynamic range. It's called having standards, people.

The press tour continues as James Mangold chats with the Den of Geek. Sounds like COVID might have been a reason things lined up, so Remi causing the pandemic wasn’t without its fringe benefits:

James Mangold did not say no, exactly, to Indiana Jones when the man in the fedora came knocking. But he didn’t open the door at first either. Instead, during those precious few months before a pandemic changed the world, Mangold experienced the surreal sensation of having his filmmaking idols Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, and Kathleen Kennedy approach him about directing the fifth Indiana Jones film—and essentially turning them down.

“There seemed like a lot of danger on a project like this,” Mangold recalls about that early discussion, “a lot of Mount Rushmore heads of greatness around me and a kind of pressure that I’m used to, but the point for me is always why are we making this movie? What does it have to say? Like, I know why a corporation might want to make the movie, but what is the creative endeavor?” For Mangold, the sticking point became Lucasfilm wanting Indiana Jones 5 to shoot about six months after that sitdown if it was going to meet a 2021 release date. And Mangold needed a delay.

Says the director, “The script wasn’t there, and I felt like I wasn’t there. I needed to find a way in. I needed to somehow own something like this if I was going to do it. It’s not a gig you jump on.” At that moment, it seemed as if he might have let the project go, as a delay would throw Disney off its timetable. But as it turned out, the whole world would soon be on pause, and Mangold would have that precious resource that would come to haunt Ford’s title character in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. He had time.

Meanwhile, another production photograph has been released. We got a hell of a gallery going by this point.

It turns out that a whole mess of new Dial of Destiny posters were released today, as opposed to just that IMAX one. In fact, every one of those upcharge rackets premiere presentation formats gets a one-sheet of its very own, so naturally we gallery’d them up all up. Here they are:

IMAX Dolby ScreenX 4DX

Nice to get another illustrated design along with the routine cheap stuff.

You might have heard that the critical reaction at Cannes wasn't quite the complement for the enthusiasm Dial of Destiny was clearly enjoying behind the Disney parapets. Could it be that a conglomeration was somehow capable of misjudging audience tastes (gasp), or is the type of blogger who rates access to a prestigious European film festival perhaps not the best bellwether for a big tent swashbuckler's appeal?

Whether you are interested in seeing a movie that would inspire such schizophrenia, or if you're simply an incurable Indy fan, your response to all this is likely to be "Tickets, please." To that end, today is the day those become available for purchase. Here's a new sizzle reel with some fresh footage to encourage those credit card transactions, and beneath that is an IMAX poster, seducing you to spring for that surcharge.

You may recall that Disney cancelled Willow after one season when its viewership didn’t make the grade. Hey, it’s just business. But after you’ve whacked a guy and sent him to rest in the Jersey Pine Barrens, that’s traditionally the end of it, and back you go to shooting pool at the Bing. Not content with tradition, Disney went full plaid and decided to go to the trouble of digging the body back up so they could shoot the damn thing into the Sun for good measure.

I don’t know quite how else to describe Disney’s decision to remove Willow (among other titles under their ownership) from their catalog altogether. It’s become a disturbing trend with these hemorrhaging streaming platforms – something to do with tax loopholes, residuals dodging and other ledger-book shell games – but it’s still kind of wild to observe. I realize we’re not talking about the most beloved of television casualties here, but nevertheless – damn.

When reached for comment, Jon Kasdan remained firm in his optimism that a Season 2 was still hypothetically possible, probably right after that Solo sequel gets produced.

Comments: 2 / Source: Deadline

Today is the premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the Cannes Film Festival. For Disney to have programmed the premiere over a month ahead of the general release is a major vote of confidence, because the movie will be soaking in the incoming word of mouth for a while. Clearly, they are not ashamed of this movie, which seems fated for a glowing reception – reviews are already trickling in. On the downside, spoilers are going to be a challenge to avoid while you wait for June 30th. Good luck.

In the meantime, there’s been no end of red carpet photographs and pushy interviews of the attending Indy team splattered across social media (here’s a decent roundup) if you’re into that sort of thing. Mojo is famous for efficiency, so let’s leave things with this nifty new promotional reel released amongst the media shrapnel, which includes bits of new footage:

Though Disney obtained Indiana Jones as an IP when they acquired Lucasfilm, the distribution rights to the first four movies, plus The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, remain controlled by Paramount. Consequently, they’ve never appeared on Disney’s streaming service. Many have asked when that situation would change. The answer, of course, was “when they paid up.”

With a new movie to promote, Disney evidently felt the time was right to play ball with Paramount, and the latter hasn’t exactly been shy about leasing out the movies for cash anyway, with the series regularly disappearing from Paramount’s own service while they were licensed to the highest bidder. It looks like the Mouse bought their turn, and so starting May 31st, Disney+ will be streaming the Indy catalog on a nonexclusive basis (they will continue to be available on Paramount+), the better to leverage that sweet brand extension. Finally, a victory for corporations.

Ahead of its Cannes premiere this week, a one minute clip from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has been shared. It's a glimpse of an elaborate chase sequence set in Tangier, Morocco, which sees Indy and his goddaughter Helena trading quips while racing through the streets in separate tuk-tuks. It looks blessedly dusty and digitally self-restrained. Take a look:

In “no duh” news, it seems that the U.S. is getting a widespread, if fleeting, re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark to properly set the table for Dial of Destiny. You’ll wanna check your local showtimes for information accurate to your area, but it’s looking like all the big chains (AMC, Regal, Cinemark) are participating and will run the movie on Sunday, June 4th and Wednesday, June 7th. Hopefully the presentation is the real deal (a DCP) and not any of that simulcast nonsense.

No word on any of the sequels getting the big screen treatment, though you can always pester your local art house. Failing that, the UHDs that came out two years ago are rather fantastic for all your marathoning needs. The glorious reds of Temple of Doom have never been more vulgar.

In other Indy news, a new still has been shared from Dial. It shows Indy next to a character named Teddy (Ethann Isidore), who will it seems do some sidekicking during the oft-glimpsed Tangier section of the movie.

Total Film Magazine will have a cover story on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in their upcoming issue, hitting newsstands April 27th. To promote it, they’ve revealed two nifty magazine covers (one for subscribers, another for the off-the-shelf version) and two new production stills from the movie:

Not sure if there’s going to be an online version of the article or if you’re gonna be dependent on illegal scans (not that it would kill you to do the right thing, of course), so we’ll just have to see how the week plays out.

And it’s 2 hours and 22 minutes. That makes it the longest of the Indy movies, but not to the extent of outrageousness. And it is a finale, after all. What with movies beginning only after nineteen hours of ads, though, you still pretty much need to clear your day.

In other Dial of Destiny news, it turns out that attendees of the Star Wars Celebration panel, where the new trailer debuted, were also treated to a six-minute set piece from the middle of the movie. Inevitably, it’s leaked out in phone quality. While that’s more continuous footage from the film than I personally need to see outside of the proper context, the reactions have been good. And that’s good.

Over in London today is the Star Wars Celebration, an annual convention during which Star Wars, as I understand it, is celebrated.

Lucasfilm still found the time to squeeze in a panel for Indiana Jones in the Dial of Destiny, where audiences were treated to the official trailer. This follows the teaser trailer back in December and the Super Bowl spot in February. Volunteer yourself to be more Twitter Trend than human by checking it out yourself below.

Disney has also shared a new poster for the movie:

Discuss the new unveilings below or in our Indy 5 forum thread. Maybe some of you could pool your talents and throw together an official web page as an act of almsgiving; times are so tough for the studio, IndianaJones.com still redirects to a Facebook page.

Substantiating earlier rumors, Disney plans to premiere Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the Cannes Film Festival in May. While Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was also unveiled to the world at Cannes (not to mention last year’s Top Gun: Maverick -- a release that Disney would surely love to replicate in more ways than one), the June 30th release date for Dial of Destiny means an entire month will separate this debut and the general release.

It’s hard not to view this as a vote of confidence on the studio’s part given how much soaking that allows the word of mouth out of that screening to do. Imagine the render quality they must have achieved with the prairie dogs this time.

Statements by Bob Iger and Kevin Feige last month sent the signal that Disney has sailed past the honeymoon phase of torching kajillions of dollars at a time on streaming content, and they will consequently be rolling back their production of Star Wars programming for Disney Plus to a mere surfeit.

It hardly needs to be said aloud that a belt-tightening policy of somewhat-less Star Wars at Lucasfilm means an absolute banishment of anything else. Historically, Lucasfilm has never required having Disney as a parent company to satisfy that expectation all by its lonesome, but it’s been an unusual last few years in this regard between the ill-fated revival of Willow on Disney Plus and an incoming finale for Indiana Jones that was said to be spawning a live action television project on the same service. Well, about that:

I’d be telling quite the whopper if I acted like I lament whatever that Indy show was gonna be, but Mojo’s memory is long enough to recognize that this strategy of Daring To Consider A Slate Consisting Of Half A Percent Of Not-Star Wars Before Abruptly Coming To Our Senses is…well, a classic.

Being that I’m the guy who repeatedly, and only somewhat sarcastically, used the front page to hype up the approach of the Willow television show, it might have been noticeable that I fell silent when the thing actually arrived. Well, Mom always said that if you don’t have anything nice to say…

But hey, just ‘cause the show’s aggressively tropey Young Adult vision wasn’t for me, doesn’t mean it wasn’t for somebody. Plus, you gotta cherish when Lucasfilm puts anything non-Star Wars on its docket. It’s sorta Mojo’s raison d’etre, if I might invoke a little…Portuguese?

So I stand with the bereaved in reporting that Disney/Lucasfilm has given the show the axe rather than allow Jon Kasdan to make good on his outstandingly presumptuous post-credit implications, presumably on the grounds that it didn’t have lightsabers in it. On the plus side, you’re effectively left with an eight hour, live action Willow 2 quasi-starring Warwick Davis, which few people over the past thirty-five years would have called possible.

I’ll also take this time to point out that the show’s soundtrack, featuring compositions by James Newton Howard and Xander Rodzinski when it wasn’t going in for horrific rock covers, is available from all the Mickey-approved platforms in a three-volume digital release from Walt Disney Records. It’s another important precedent for those of us who have our fingers crossed for more official soundtrack releases for certain non-obvious Lucasfilm properties.

Now, dry those tears and let’s get that throwback graphic adventure continuation up and running. May I suggest David Fox?

Comments: 3 / Source: Deadline

The MPAA has awarded Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny the traditional PG-13 rating, citing “sequences of violence and action, language and smoking.” Yah, you’re gonna want that TruCoat violence and action. Allegedly, this was only achieved after the filmmakers cut out 40 solid minutes of unflinching sexual activity, Cruising-style, but as a commercial matter The Mouse needs this to reach the widest possible audience. You’re gonna want that widest possible audience.

A movie can only be rated after it has locked picture (unless the studio wants to pay for a resubmission), so the real news here is that this thing is in the birth canal, and there’s no turning back. Next on the horizon should be a proper trailer. That’s probably the one that’s going to give us our first look at Sophia Hapgood, or so elTee’s reliable sources tell me.

It’s always useful to remember that a corollary to our getting a fifth Indiana Jones movie is that we’re getting a fifth Indiana Jones score from John Williams. In a new conversation with the maestro, Variety extracted a few quotes on his final Indy score (but not necessarily final film score, as had been previously indicated):

The composer finished recording the score for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” on Feb. 10 and, while he suggested last summer that the final Harrison Ford adventure would be the last of his 100-plus film scores, that’s not quite the truth.

“I might have meant that at the moment,” he says with a smile, “but you never want to say no unequivocally. If Steven or another director should come along with something that is so moving that you want to drop the phone and rush to the piano and have it all come out — should that happen, with the appropriate energy needed to do it, I wouldn’t rule out a situation like that.”

Recording for the final “Indiana Jones” film – and three of the previous editions, starting with 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” were Oscar-nominated for their music – began last June 28, and has continued off and on since then.

“It’s certainly got to be an hour and a half of music, maybe more,” Williams estimates. “But I’m quite happy with it. There’s a lot of new material. The old material works very well as a touchstone of memory, but I had great fun, and I have a theme that I’ve written for Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the wonderful actress.” She plays Helena Shaw, reportedly Indy’s goddaughter.

Williams introduced her theme last summer at the Hollywood Bowl at the suggestion of director James Mangold. “And I enjoyed doing it last week with the San Francisco Symphony with [violinist] Anne-Sophie Mutter, who I arranged it for, for that concert. And I think I’ll play it in Chicago next month.”

The composer praised the script and performances of both Ford and Waller-Bridge in the film, which opens June 30. “Harrison is wonderful in it. He looks great, he moves beautifully. The best part of it for me is the writing and the interplay of dialogue between Harrison and Phoebe, like the old-style Hepburn-and-Tracy kind of bickering. It’s witty and bright and snappy, like a duet that goes on for two hours.”

The “Indiana Jones” scores, Williams notes, “are unified by Indy’s theme, and the general style of the film, which is in my mind a kind of action-comedy, because you never take the action seriously. It’s certainly a swashbuckling affair from beginning to end, fashioned more like movies of the ’30s and ’40s where the orchestra is racing along with the action, which you wouldn’t do in contemporary films very much.”

He liked working with Mangold, who he described as “ebullient” and “a lovely man. He’s done a very, very expert job on a very difficult kind of film to make.”

I don’t want to spoil anything, but you’re gonna love the “Indy’s Noble End” track!

If you’ve been following along with us on all things Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, you may know that English character actor Toby Jones will be playing Basil, a sidekick to Indy, in the much-touted prologue set in 1944. Conforming to how Indiana Jones teasers usually play out, it all sounds heavy on the eventfulness:

Jones explains that his concerns going into Indiana Jones were that “you work so incrementally and you work beat by beat, moment by moment with special effects. Twenty seconds might take two weeks to film! I thought I’d be bored out of my mind, but I found the whole thing so fascinating. And in the end, I was so relieved that I had done it.”

He also felt pleased that he’d gotten the opportunity to do some of his own stunts, even though he’d thought a stuntman would some of the more trickier ones.

“All I can tell you is that as time wore on with that film, we came to various action-like moments and I’d think, ‘Well, that’ll be a stuntman thing, and a stuntman will come along for that.’ And days would sort of arrive and they’d go, “Toby, do you want to come on set?’ and I’d come on set like, ’Right, I thought they were doing the stunt, the big thing,’ and he’s sort of like, ‘Yeah, so you’ll walk along here,’ and I kept thinking that at some point someone’s going to tap me and go, ‘But we’ll let the stuntman do that and that,’ and it never happened,” he says, eyes widening.

So when you see Jones “walking along” on June 30th, you can rest assured that he did so without fakery. And if that doesn’t justify an IMAX premium, what does, really?

Some new quotes from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny director James Mangold have been published by way of The Hollywood Reporter.

Yet as fans already know, the film’s opening sequence is set back in Indy’s glory days. Ford was de-aged using AI technology and the Lucasfilm’s library of footage from his previous work. Mangold says the sequence isn’t just a fun throwback but provides more meaningful context to the character for the rest of the film.

“It reminds the audience of the contrast between a hero in his physical prime and a hero at 70,” Mangold says. “We’re not relying solely on the audience’s memory of the previous films. It reminds everyone what he’s done, what he’s survived, what he’s accomplished. By showing him in his most hearty and then finding him at 70 in New York City, it produces for the audience a kind of wonderful whiplash of how they’re going to have to readjust and retool their brains for this guy. His past is a live memory for the audience, hanging over a man who is now living with anonymity in a world that no longer cares or recognizes the things he felt so deeply about. You’re left with a multilayered perception of his character, both what he was and what he is, and how the world is different between the first 20 minutes of the movie.”

Though there's always something vaguely mannequin-like about the end result to even my aging peepers, the glimpses we've gotten of this VFX effort look like it's going to be the best of its kind so far. Read Mangold's comments in full here.

I mean, it's thirty seconds, so just watch it.

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