Some more news about “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull“:

Recently, director Steven Speilberg tells Vanity Fair :

“I’m in my second cut, which means I’ve put the movie together and I’ve seen it,”
“I usually do about five cuts as a director. The best news is that, when I saw the movie myself the first time, there was nothing I wanted to go back and shoot, nothing I wanted to reshoot, and nothing I wanted to add.”

The film’s producer George Lucas adds:

“I’m the one that has to come up with the story, and the MacGuffin, the supernatural object that everyone’s going after,”

["MacGuffin" is the Hitchcockian term for the plot gimmick that propels the narrative forward.]

Lucas then went on to say:

“So this went on for 15 years,” “And finally we got to a point where everybody said, ‘Look, we’re not doing that movie.’ And I said, ‘Well, look, I can’t think of another MacGuffin. This is it. This works. I know this works.’ And then we stopped. I just said, ‘O.K.,’ and that’s about the time I started Star Wars again. But then Harrison was kind of interested. And I said, ‘I won’t do it unless we can have that MacGuffin. Without the MacGuffin, I will not go near this thing.’”

After star Harrison Ford, Steven Speilberg and George Lucas all agreed to move forward with the project after reading the David Koepp screenplay. Lucas tells Vanity Fair:

“What it is that made it perfect was the fact that the MacGuffin I wanted to use and the idea that Harrison would be 20 years older would fit,” “So that put it in the mid-50s, and the MacGuffin I was looking at was perfect for the mid-50s. I looked around and I said, ‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t do a 30s serial, because now we’re in the 50s. What is the same kind of cheesy-entertainment action movie, what was the secret B movie, of the 50s?’ So instead of doing a 30s Republic serial, we’re doing a B science-fiction movie from the 50s. The ones I’m talking about are, like, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Blob, The Thing. So by putting it in that context, it gave me a way of approaching the whole thing.”

The highly anticipated “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” releases through Paramount on May 22, 2008

“Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) – $242 million box office

“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984) – $180 million box office

“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989) – $197 million box office

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