It’s the summer blockbuster film fans have been waiting for – as Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny finally hits UK cinemas today.
The £235million movie sees Harrison Ford, 80, return as the whip-cracking, fedora-wearing archaeologist.
It features an ancient Greek tablet linked to time travel and a digitally de-aged hero, with co-stars Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Indy’s god-daughter Helena and Mads Mikkelsen as ex-Nazi Jurgen Voller.
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Here, JAMES MOORE puts you “Indy know” about the billion-dollar franchise with some fascinating facts about the making of four former flicks featuring Dr Jones…
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
(Image: CBS via Getty Images)
Ford made the part of Indiana his own in the 1981 blockbuster as he takes on the Nazis on a quest to find the lost, holy Ark of the Covenant.
Magnum PI star Tom Selleck was writer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg’s first choice but was unavailable, so Ford – of Star Wars fame – was cast just three weeks before filming began.
Indy’s burly sidekick Sallah, played by John Rhys-Davies, was originally offered to Danny DeVito while National Lampoon star Karen Allen was cast as Marion Ravenwood. Both Allen, 71 and Rhys-Davies return for the new movie.
(Image: CBS via Getty Images)
Filmed on location in Tunisia, 150 of the crew got food poisoning including Ford, which explains why the iconic scene of him quickly shooting a sword-wielding foe was cut comically short.
Some 10,000 snakes were found in UK pet shops for the The Well of Souls scene, while a 12ft fibreglass boulder was made for Indy to outrun.
Grapes had to be dangled in front of the movie’s monkey to get it to do a Nazi salute and the sound of the Ark’s top being slid open came from a toilet lid.
THE TEMPLE OF DOOM
(Image: Getty Images)
The darker 1984 prequel featured human sacrifice and torture, with a plot that sees Indy battle an Indian cult intent on world domination using the mystical Sankara Stones.
He first flees Chinese gangsters from a club cheekily called Obi Wan in a Star Wars nod, but Chinese authorities banned a scene of Indy being chased along the Great Wall on a motorbike.
The crew really did throw a raft out of a plane for one memorable stunt, while the mine cart chase was filmed on a rollercoaster style set.
(Image: Getty Images)
Ke Huy Quan was cast as loveable kid Short Round by accident when he went with his brother to an audition.
Kate Capshaw played love interest Willie Scott, but her dress was eaten by an elephant on set and she took sedatives for a scene where she’s covered in bugs. Some 50,000 cockroaches and 30,000 beetles were used, with custard and raspberry doubling as chilled monkey brains.
Ford suffered a slipped disc on set and was pranked for the whipping scene when singer Barbara Streisand appeared on set in S&M gear to lash him. Capshaw later married Spielberg.
THE LAST CRUSADE
(Image: Getty Images)
This time Indy battles the Nazis in 1938 as he goes in search of the Holy Grail with his dad, played by Sean Connery, who was only 12 years older than Ford in real life.
Spielberg worried the eventual script for the 1989 movie was too like Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
The crew bred 2,000 of their own disease-free rats for the catacombs sewer scene. It caused phobic New Tricks star Amanda Redman to turn down the part of Dr. Elsa Schneider, which went to ex-Bond girl Alison Doody instead.
A Styrofoam cup was rubbed for the sound of a burning German castle and a balloon for earthquake tremors. The cast wore real ex-Nazi uniforms and a sweaty Connery and Ford decided to secretly take their trousers off for the Zeppelin table scene.
Ford did many of his own stunts including for the action-packed tank chase that took 10 days to film. His real chin scar from a car accident was also worked into the story.
A genuine rock-carved site in Petra, Jordan, was the temple, while the joke about Indy getting his name from the family dog was true, as Lucas named the character after his own Alaskan Malamute.
THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
(Image: PICTURE PUBLICITY)
Set in the 1950s the KGB are Indy’s foes in the 2008 flick, as he’s on the trail of a telepathic crystal skull in Peru.
Ford was 64, but still did many of his own stunts, training three hours in the gym a day. He turned down suggestions to have a CGI whip and refused to dye his hair.
Cate Blanchett based her Russian villain Irina Spalko on Bond’s Rosa Klebb and learnt fencing and karate for the role.
Connery turned down a cameo, Allen returned as Marion and Ray Winstone played British agent George ‘“Mac” McHale.
Shia LaBeouf starred as Mutt Williams, Indy’s son, but later trashed the movie leading to Ford to labelling him a “f***ing idiot.”
Some fans did criticise the alien-linked plot, CGI use and Indy somehow surviving a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge!
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
