On Friday Disney announced a series of new release dates for their upcoming films, as the schedule has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though we should be reminded that these dates could still change (especially given the uncertain nature of the timetable for the virus outbreak), of particular note is that 2022 could be a pretty big year for Lucasfilm.
The untitled Indiana Jones 5 has a new release date of July 29, 2022.
It’s been a long saga for the film, leaving people to jokingly wonder whether it’ll actually get made. It was a project that got mention shortly after Lucasfilm was acquired by Disney, and a release date was originally scheduled for July 19, 2019. A year later, the release date was pushed back to July 10, 2020. It was again pushed back the following year, with a new release date eyed at July 9, 2021. So this most recent move was just one in a series of delays for the release of the film, now scheduled for July 29, 2022.
The film will star Harrison Ford returning to the iconic role of Indiana Jones for the fifth – and perhaps final – time. There have been several people at various stages working on the script, most recently Jonathan Kasdan (who co-wrote Solo: A Star Wars Story and who is the son of Larry Kasdan), and Ford teased earlier this year that the script was very good and would see new developments from his history explored. However in February it was revealed that Steven Spielberg was going to be stepping away from the director’s chair for the film, with James Mangold being eyed to replace him.
With all of the uncertainty about that Lucasfilm project, however, it’s worth mentioning this: there has been no changed to the planned Star Wars schedule yet. The next film was planned for December 16, 2022, and that still remains the case.
I do wonder if the announcement about what that film is will be delayed, though, as it seems this year’s Celebration would be the ideal time to do that. And with Celebration very much up in the air at this point, perhaps Lucasfilm will have to announce the news another way (that is, assuming they actually are planning to announce more details there).
But if all of this stays as currently planned, 2022 could be a pretty huge year for Lucasfilm, passing the torch in many ways on Indiana Jones and starting with a new era of Star Wars.
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