Indiana Jones fans are still furious about the alien twist in divisive 2008 sequel Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – but Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford weren’t happy about it, either.
Star Wars filmmaker George Lucas, who produced the adventure franchise, was the one who wanted to introduce extra-terrestrials into the Indy universe, but the film’s director Spielberg and lead star Ford “kind of got into a fight” with him about it.
“I wanted it to be kind of a War of the Worlds-sort of thing,” Lucas recalled to Vulture, revealing that Ford and Spielberg categorically told him: “We’re not going to do another science-fiction movie.”
Producer Kathleen Kennedy added: “Steven was struggling with that movie. Harrison was struggling with the movie. They didn’t want to do a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie that involved aliens, and they kind of got into a fight with George about it.”
But Lucas fought for the addition, telling Spielberg: “This is perfect because it’s the 1950s, when flying saucers were a whole thing.”
However, Spielberg declined, and the pair reached a compromise after five script rewrites – to make it so that the extra-terrestrials were from a different dimension…
