Chris Pratt Addresses Rumors of Indiana Jones Casting Talks With Steven Spielberg

By Patrick Cavanaugh

In the years following the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, fans of the titular character didn't know what the future held for the hero, with Jurassic World and Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt recently joking that, had he taken on the character, he would be fearful of Harrison Ford's ghost. The question was poised by Happy Sad Confused podcast host Joshua Horowitz, asking Pratt if there had ever been talks between him and Steven Spielberg before Indiana Jones 5 moved forward, with the actor avoiding direct confirmation or denial of such talks and instead deflecting with an anecdote about Ford's own connection to the character.

"I don't even know who Steven Spielberg is. Who? Steven Who?" Pratt joked to Horowitz. "No, aren't they doing Indiana Jones with Harrison Ford? All I know is I once saw a quote from Harrison Ford and I don't even know if it was really him but it was enough to scare me, that was like, 'When I die, Indiana Jones dies.' And I'm like, am I gonna get haunted by the ghost of Harrison Ford one day when he dies if I play...?" 

The host did point out that the reports were coming from reliable sources as opposed to more speculative outlets, and that those reports date back to 2015, before the latest Indiana Jones earned any production momentum. Pratt noted, "No, that's not anything that is real, I think people are capable of making mistakes, even if they're Deadline."

Despite dismissing these reports as "not anything real," the actor appeared to be quite selective in the comments he made, allowing room for those reports to have been accurate at the time, though without much substantial weight to the notion. 

Even if there was a point in which there were talks of Pratt inheriting the famous figure's fedora, Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy recently reiterated that the only Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford.

"There should be moments along the way when you learn things. [Solo] may have certainly been a learning moment," Kennedy shared with Vanity Fair earlier this year. "Some people have talked about how, well, maybe Solo should have been a TV show. But even doing Solo as a TV show without Harrison Ford as Han Solo ... It's the same thinking. Maybe I should have recognized this before. We would never make Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford. Having just finished the fifth movie, I can tell you, there wasn't a day I wasn't on set where I wasn't like, 'Yes -- this is Indiana Jones.'"

She continued, "Maybe I'm closer to the DNA of Indy, and always have been, than I was when I came into Star Wars, because now it does seem so abundantly clear that we can't do that. You get excited by these things, and you want to revisit things you want. You want to have that feeling again, and you're trying to resurrect that. I think that's what we do even with our new characters. With Star Wars, everybody talks about a 'feeling' they have about Star Wars. That's that intangible idea that you're looking for."

Indiana Jones 5 is currently slated to hit theaters on June 30, 2023.

Would you like to see Pratt play Indiana Jones? Let us know in the comments!

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