Tom is Clever: New Ideas for an Old Franchise: Indiana Jones Edition

There have been many who have realized the corporate culture of movie making has ruined film. The tendency for capitalism to double down on a great success in order to continue to make profits has led the movie industry to continue to produce terrible sequels and reboots (followed by more sequels) of existing series and franchises instead of creating anything new.

This has been well documented by Ethan Anderton from First Showing, and by Andrew Allen from Shortoftheweek who both use the same infographic from Box Office Mojo. The guys at Cracked have also weighed in, like they often do, with 5 reasons. If you type in phrases like "Hollywood unoriginal", or "no new ideas from Hollywood" into google, there is a wealth of similar articles, tweets, blogposts, and commentary about this problem. We've also known about it for quite some time, most of these articles are 5 or more years old.

However, There are some franchises that I think we can all agree should never stop. James Bond is a great example, no matter who plays the characters, or what evil villain Bond is stopping, those movies are super fun, and never a bad time. If Disney were to remake those awful Star Wars prequels (pleeeease, pretty pretty please, make them not suck), I'd be the first in line to buy a ticket.

Also, on this list, is Indiana Jones. Now, I know Harrison Ford is super old, but so is Sean Connery, and that didn't stop the Broccoli's from making 24 films with 6 different actors. Like James Bond, Indiana Jones could potentially be played by anyone. Knowing this, I propose an idea for Disney and LucasFilm.

The mystical and cryptoarchaeological (is that a word?) themes of Indiana Jones is what makes the franchise, I think, so attractive. Aside from Harrison Ford's portrayal of the hero, the quests for macguffins based on legendary artifacts turn the plots of these movies into high stakes scavenger hunts full of far-away, secretive places, borderline illegal hijinx, and sinister competition and doublecross.

I would like to see Indiana Jones tackle the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.

Think about this: In my opinion, the most successful Indiana Jones films are Raiders and Last Crusade, both dealing with biblical artifacts. The mythology of apocryphal Abrahamic religions, the power imbued into seemingly worthless artifacts, surrounded in archaic mystery, unlocking ancient powers, but without relying on extraterrestrial origins made these movies special. Why not the Cthulhu mythos?

To my knowledge there hasn't been a successful adaptation of anything Lovecraftian. There sure have been plenty of science fiction/horror stories that are heavily influenced by the Cthulhu mythos, like Hellboy and Batman, Scooby Doo, Supernatural, X-Files, South Park, Rick and Morty, The Ghostbusters, True Detective, Evil Dead, and many others. But not yet have we seen a major motion picture explore the horror suspense created by Lovecraft, culminating in a situation where "top men" had to bury the evidence.

Just put it in a box, between the ark of the covenant and Jimmy Hoffa

Imagine Indiana Jones, searching for some kind of artifact... the Necromonicon perhaps, or eltdown shards, or g'harne fragments. Along the way he visits Arkham, Commoriom, The Nameless City, runs into the Black Brotherhood, the King in Yellow, The Great Race of Yith perhaps, and ultimately stops the awakening of Cthulhu.

I think there is great potential for this mashup. And, well, if Indiana Jones doesn't work out, I'm sure the Tomb Raider camp could take a crack at it.