Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Director Explains the Difficulties of Filming During COVID (Exclusive)

By Jamie Jirak

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is one of the many films that had a difficult production due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the movie is finally hitting theaters later this month, and fans will get to see Harrison Ford play the titular hero for the first time in 15 years. Earlier this week, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with the new movie's director, James Mangold, and we asked him about the unsung heroes of the production. While shouting out some of the folks he worked with on Indiana Jones, Mangold also opened up about the difficulties of making the movie during COVID. 

"Well, I think it's important to remind everyone we made this movie in a total lockdown period of COVID and the idea of making a globe-trotting adventure film in a period of worldwide pandemic, I have to take my hats off to the production staff, the ADs, the location people who were always ahead of us trying to figure out... At one point, we weren't going to Morocco, we were going to India, and then the level of the pandemic in India meant to rewrite our way to Morocco," Mangold explained. 

He continued, "And that the entire picture was made in a time of such tumult. And no better example would be than the incredible production staff I had making the movie who had to keep navigating and changing plans and forging forward at a time where even just simple air travel was really hard. And if you traveled somewhere, you then had to be quarantined for a week. And all that had to be figured into the whole arrangement." He added, "I don't even see it anymore. I've forgotten. Now that I'm mentioning it, I'm remembering, wow, that was hell." 

James Mangold Remembers Seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark:

"It's on this day that I went and saw it in Middletown, New York at the Orange County Cinema," Mangold told ComicBook.com on the 42nd anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark. "I was alone on the first matinee. And blown away," Mangold shared. "It's crazy," he added when asked how it feels to be making his own Indy film. "I mean, on the simplest level, if you go back to the 17-year-old sitting there, I knew I wanted to be a movie director, although seeing Raiders was only galvanizing that feeling. But if you told me that I'd be making a movie with those people on the screen, that would blow my mind." 

Related:

The iconic Harrison Ford returns for one last adventure when Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny premieres in theaters on June 30th. Lucasfilm's latest film in the long-running franchise sees Dr. Jones team up with his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) in a race against nefarious forces to secure a powerful artifact. The duo will go up against the mysterious former Nazi-turned-NASA scientist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), and the film also features stars Boyd Holbrook, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, and John Rhys Davies. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is directed by James Mangold and is set to be Ford's final appearance as the iconic archeologist.

 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hits theaters on June 30th.

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