James Mangold, the director of Indiana Jones 5, has revealed that the studio is using VFX technology to de-age series mainline actor Harrison Ford as part of the opening sequence for the new film.
In an interview with Empire Magazine, Mangold stated that the studio digitally de-aged Ford for the opening minutes of the movie because they desired to provide the audience with a rush of adrenaline at seeing the classic young version of Indie swing back into the fray.
The scene itself drops Indy back to 1944, where he will need to navigate a castle full of Nazis before he transitions into the main adventure.
Mangold explained, “I wanted the chance to dive into this kind of full-on George-and-Steven old picture and give the audience an adrenaline blast…then we fall out, and you find yourself in 1969. The audience doesn’t experience the change between the ’40s and ’60s as an intellectual conceit, but literally experiences the buccaneering spirit of those early days… and then the beginning of now.”
Kathleen Kennedy, the film’s producer, wants audiences to believe they scrapped together some old footage that was never released.
Reports claim that the VFX team utilized several techniques to pull together the scene, including cutting-edge software from Industrial Light & Magic that scans archive footage of Harrison Ford in his early years to match it with the footage that was shot for the new film.
In the scene, viewers will get to see Ford donning a replica jacket from Raiders that is a “thread-for-thread” duplicate of the original.
Even Ford himself said, “this is the first time I’ve seen it where I believe it,” praising the technology. He continued by stating, “it’s a little spooky. I don’t think I even want to know how it works, but it works. It doesn’t make me want to be young, though. I’m glad to have earned my age.”
The fifth Indiana Jones film is projected to be the last to feature Ford in the iconic role. Despite this, Steven Spielberg has stated that the franchise will continue past this. According to media articles, Disney and Lucasfilm are “actively” searching to develop a new series for Disney+, but we still do not know who is to play the lead.