The Indiana Jones Films That Never Were

Now that Disney owns the Indiana Jones franchise, we can take it as gospel that the next movie in the series will be ready by December 2019. But cinematic history is littered with unrealized Indiana Jones projects since Raiders of the Lost Ark came out in 1981. This was because each story idea had to be approved by three people: George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Harrison Ford. And you know how hard it is to get three people to agree on anything. For example, take Indiana Jones and the Haunted Mansion.    

We'll start with the one we know the least about. One of George Lucas' suggestions for a third Indiana Jones movie was to send Indy into a haunted house ride. Full details of this never really came to light, but a screenplay was written for it. That was done by Diane Thomas, who had penned Romancing The Stone.

Spielberg resisted this approach in the end, however, feeling that it went too close to one of his earlier films, Poltergeist. It wasn't that Indiana Jones movies hadn't done ghosts and the supernatural to some extent before. But for Spielberg, it just felt like retreading old ground. The haunted mansion idea was nixed.

The majority of the unrealized projects were rejected by Lucas, though, and his input was eliminated when Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012. Read about several other Indiana Jones adventures that didn’t make it to the screen at Den of Geek.