Caffeinated Clint
Does Indiana Jones have a kid?
I was pleased to be able to put an end to those ‘Natalie Portman will play his daughter’ rumours a while back, if only because the BS rumour kept burning like a brush fire, but something tells me a denigration won’t be headed my way in terms of this latest ‘Indiana Jones 4’ casting rumour.
According to Aint it Cool, Speilberg is believed to have re-hired his “Transformers” star Shia LeBeouf (“A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints”, “I, Robot”) to play Indy Jr, in the forthcoming fourth instalment of the Jones’ adventures.
Though recent versions of the “Indy 4” script didn’t include any mention of a son or daughter character, the latest one, by David Koepp, is indeed believed to include the archaeologist’s sprog.
Ever since the possibility of an “Indy 4” was muttered – I believe it was about 15 mins after I stepped outside of the theatre from attending the 6:30pm session of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, in 1989 – there’s been widespread rumours about who’ll join Indy (Harrison Ford) for it. At one stage, they were talking about Kevin Costner playing his brother (granted, this was back when Costner was a formidable box-office superstar) and later, of course, the rumour mill span into overdrive with rumours that George Lucas had re-hired his “Star Wars” Queen, Natalie Portman, to play Indy’s daughter. Please…. Do we have to have a kid character? And if we do, does it have to be Indy’s offspring? Short Round worked – mainly because he was a cool little sidekick that was essentially the chalk to Ford’s cheese. And seriously, there will be enough family quarrels with Sean Connery reprising his role as Indy’s Dad.
On the other hand, I like LaBeouf – he was great in “Holes” – and I guess you could say that they have cast someone that you wouldn’t normally associate as the son of Indiana Jones, which is clever. If they’d gone the unimaginative/unsurprising route, we’d see someone like a Nathan Fillion or a James Franco in that part, not some skinny short tyke who‘d seem more interested in reading a book than getting out there and writing the adventures for his own.
Just a pity sequels have to follow the lead of the one that came before it…. And have a son/daughter/cousin character. We’ve seen it with “Rocky Balboa” (though I guess that was a no-brainer, considering the son had appeared in the previous two films); we’re about to see it with the new “Die Hard” film (Mary Elizabeth Winstead will play Bruce’s daughter) and at present, they’re casting the role of Brendan Fraser’s grown-up son in the new “Mummy” movie. We’re only weeks away from the imminent announcement that Hilary Duff and Frankie Muniz will play the offspring of Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in the hugely anticipated “When Harry Met Sally’s Kids”.
And who said Hollywood can’t think for themselves?
