*THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY*
The last Indiana Jones project for Harrison Ford is finally in theatres. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny sees the titular character and his goddaughter, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, race against time to change the course of history. The film is directed and written by Logan director, James Mangold.
Before James Mangold, though, Steven Spielberg was sitting in the director’s chair. However, he stepped down in February 2020 and the responsibilities went to James Mangold. The filmmaker decided to create a fresh script for the film. While there aren’t many details about the original script, what we do know is that it would have made an actress very happy. The new script simply disappointed because she wanted more for the relationship between her character and Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones.
Indiana Jones Almost Had a Better Relationship with This Character
Actress Karen Allen played the role of the tough-talking love interest of Indiana Jones, Marion Ravenwood. Fans were introduced to the character in Raiders of the Lost Ark but she was M.I.A for Temple of Doom and Last Crusade. Allen finally reprised her role in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull where Marion tied the knot with Harrison Ford’s Indy after he found out they had a child.
Of course, Dial of Destiny had to shine a light on the fact that the lead character was a husband and a father. However, it was not what many, including Allen, might have hoped. The actress stated that she presumed the story would focus on Marion and Indy’s relationship. What happened instead was that the fictional couple ended up separating after their son, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) was killed in Vietnam.
According to Allen, the script from when Steven Spielberg was directing was more focused on the couple. Things changed when James Mangold stepped in. Talking to Variety, Allen stated,
“I think because the last time you see Indy and Marion, they’ve gotten married — I don’t know that I thought we’d pick up from where we left off, but I did always imagine that it would be a story with Indy and Marion going forward. When Steven was going to direct the film, I think the scripts were more focused on an Indy/Marion story.
But when Steven stepped aside and James came in, he started fresh with new writers and they just went in the direction they went in. They were going to tell a different story. That’s not to say that I had ever read a script that Steven was working on, because I hadn’t. But I just knew from conversations that we’d had that the ongoing story had involved Marion in a much bigger way than the story that they ended up with.”
Not just Allen, this change in the script probably disappointed a lot of fans who absolutely shipped Marion and Indiana Jones. Who would have thought!
Karen Allen Was Disappointed with the Script Change
When asked by Variety how she felt about the separation and Mutt’s death, she stated that she was simply disappointed. She had known that the team did not want to continue with LaBeouf and that they would have to come up with a story for his absence. However, she only got to know that Mutt would be killed off in Vietnam just six months before the shooting.
“Well, I was disappointed, of course. I knew that there had been talk that they did not want to go forward with Shia, so I knew that something in the story had to create the potential for him to not be there in a way that made sense. I didn’t know that he was going to die in Vietnam until I read the script, oh gosh, maybe just it was maybe six months before they were going to start shooting.”
On the brighter side, Allen was happy that at least her character’s story ended with a happy ending, something she envisioned for her and Indy. She feels profoundly happy that the two ended up reconciling at the very end of the film.
“I was deeply happy that Marion came back at least the end of their story. If this is indeed truly the last film of this particular group of films — if this is the last story with Harrison as Indy and me as Marion — I was profoundly happy that it didn’t end without them coming back together. That meant a lot to me, to feel like they were going to ride off in the sunset together.”
It sure would have been absolutely wholesome seeing Indy as a family man with Marion and Mutt. Unfortunately, Mangold had a different route in mind.
At the box office, Dial of Destiny seems to be struggling a bit despite the Fourth of July holiday. While the opening was estimated to be somewhere between $80-85 million, it could only make $71 million by Monday, July 03. According to Box Office Mojo, the film sits at $83 million at the moment.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is playing in theatres.
Source: Variety
