Indiana Jones V Delayed One Year
There has been a big reshuffle of release dates for Disney movies. All of them have been delayed at least a few months. Now some of this is understandable. The Covid Coof looks like it is finally going from pandemic to endemic status, so a brief delay while people get used to going back to the theaters makes sense.
Also, there is the serious possibility of a strike by the production workers union. The gaffers, key grips, and lighting techs have had enough and want to be treated like human beings. A shocking idea in Hollywood. It will take some getting used to. There has been a deal announced by the union but the members don’t like it and may not approve it.
That would explain the minor delays.
But Indy has been kicked back a full year. That means major trouble behind the scenes.
What makes this odd is that the delay was announced before the announcement of Kathleen Kennedy’s contract extension. The negotiations are done, the deal is in stone and she has signed it…but Chapek hasn’t put his signature on it yet. It was still sitting on his desk when the delay was announced.
The behind the scenes gossip is that as recently as two weeks ago everyone on set was confident of hitting their target date of next summer. But over the weekend they went into panic mode and it had nothing to do with the impending strike.
My first guess would be that Ford was injured again and they are covering it up. However, yesterday all of the shill sites released similarly worded stories that Ford was back on the set and doing fine.
Okay, maybe he is. They might not be lying. It’s a possibility. It’s happened before once or twice.
Assuming Ford is capable of working then the delay has to be caused by massive reshoots.
There were script leaks and some aspects were clearly true. There have been pictures of 79-year-old Indy in Nazi Germany. Assuming the rest of the leaks are true and Indiana Jones was going to get the Luke Skywalker treatment good and hard, it’s possible that the brakes have been thrown on to try and rescue Indy from being Kay-Kayed into franchise death.
This project was greenlit during Bob Iger’s shadow CEO administration. It’s possible that Chapek was being assured by the “creative types” that Phobe Waller-Indy was going to” bring in a whole new audience.” However, he’s been listening to the merchandising people more and more, (the guys who sell the toys) and they have to be screaming about how this is going to be yet another franchise destroying Last Jedi.
I strongly suspect major rewrites and reshoots are now underway.
IF there is another delay there is no way that they can justify the expense of continuing this production to the institutional shareholders. The movie will be canceled.
Kay-Kay’s current contract runs out on Halloween night this year. While I still expect Kathleen Kennedy’s contract to be signed, Chapek has to be annoyed with her performance. The last-minute delay in signing is his little way of playing trick-or-treat on her.
Okay I’m done here.
