Empire caught up with producer George Lucas, director Steven Spielberg and actor Harrison Ford, regarding the upcoming feature "Indiana Jones IV"."We’re basically going to do "The Phantom Menace"", said Lucas.
"People’s expectations are way higher than you can deliver. You could just get killed for the whole thing...
"We would do it for fun and just take the hit with the critics and the fans...But nobody wants to get into it unless they are really happy with it...
"I discovered a McGuffin. I told the guys about it and they were a little dubious about it, but it’s the best one we’ve ever found...Unfortunately, it was a little too ‘connected’ for the others. They were afraid of what the critics would think. They said, "Can’t we do it with a different McGuffin? Can’t we do this?" and I said "No". So we pottered around with that for a couple of years. And then Harrison really wanted to do it and Steve said, "Okay". I said, "We’ll have to go back to that original MacGuffin and take out the offending parts of it and we’ll still use that area of the supernatural to deal with it".
"Hopefully it will be different in all the right ways and the same in all the familiar ways," added Spielberg.
As for timing, Lucas says that filming is scheduled for mid-2007, for a 2008 release.
"Before I was just working with Steven and Harrison," said Lucas.
"Now everybody’s a superstar, so it’s a little bit more difficult than it was then".
"But there’s a good chance it will happen," said Ford.
"There are things left for this character to do".
Actress Karen Allen who played 'Marion Ravenwood' in the first 'Indiana Jones' feature "Raiders of the Lost Ark", said that actress Natalie Portman will play Harrison Ford's daughter in the upcoming film.
