Indiana Jones 5 Director Explains Indy's Fate

[This story contains Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny spoilers.] In his fifth and final cinematic adventure, Indiana Jones wasn't destined to go into the great unknown mystery. At the end of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the aged archaeologist (Harrison Ford) is shot and almost becomes history — literally, as he wishes to live out the rest of his life in 212 BC after Nazi Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) uses Archimedes' Dial to open a fissure into the past. His goddaughter, treasure hunter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) knocks some sense into him — by socking him in the jaw — and dragging him back to 1969, where he rides off into the (figurative) sunset after reconciling with his estranged wife Marion (Karen Allen).

According to director and co-writer James Mangold, there was no version of the film where Indiana Jones dies at the end of Dial of Destiny. 

"How could I have done that?" Mangold told EW. "I think everyone, particularly, because I made Logan and wrote it as well, there was a lot of anxiety that I was just going to turn into the icon executioner." 

Mangold's 2017 film Logan was a swansong for Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, the metal-clawed mutant of the X-Men who died at the end of his franchise sendoff. But there was no such ending planned for Indiana Jones: Mangold said he and co-writers John-Henry and Jez Butterworth didn't discuss whether or not to conclude Dial of Destiny with Indy's death.

"Honestly, I enjoy that people were so atwitter about it, because to me, there really is no attraction to just getting thousands of people in a theater and hitting them in a head with a hammer... Death is not an ending. The reason death worked in Logan is because of the beautiful irony of his death, which is that he lived such a painful life, that it was only in the last 30 seconds of his life that he actually got to experience love. And that to me was what was so moving about that ending," Mangold said, adding: "And [Jackman's] off making another one right now [with Marvel Studios' Deadpool 3]. So you could see the finality of that."

The director continued: "But for Indiana Jones, it isn't about him dying. It had to be about him coming to terms with this period of his life and this period of the world. And in a way, coming to terms with whether Indiana Jones has relevance to ours."

Ford told EW that Indiana Jones dying "came up in conversation a few times, and [Mangold] said he didn't want to be the one to kill me." But those talks never got far, and the creative team never talked seriously about his character's death "because the script came out, and it didn't have Indiana Jones dying, so we didn't really need to talk about it." 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is now playing in theaters.