It might be hard to believe, but it was a full 19 years ago that Indiana Jones last appeared on movies screens. While the previous movie was known as The Last Crusade, it didn’t take long for Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford to discuss a fourth entry in the astoundingly popular franchise. Give that the series was created as an homage to the never-ending movie serials of the 1940s, it was not particularly surprising to hear that Indy would return. However, it was quite surprising that took this long for him to find his way back into cinemas. Since the last Indiana Jones outing, hundreds of movies have been made that raised the bar for big screen action sequences. While very few of these films have managed to equal or top the standard set by Spielberg and co., it does raise questions about whether or not this latest entry in the franchise will succeed with contemporary audiences. The filmmakers are under intense pressure and there is a good chance that they simply waited to long to make the movie.

In an interview with Vanity Fair on the set of the new film, George Lucas said that he came up with the plot for Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull years ago, but both Spielberg and Ford turned down the idea. They thought the concept wouldn’t work and wanted to do something else, but Lucas refused to even consider any other ideas. Eventually Spielberg and Ford relented and screenwriters were hired to make Lucas’ unknown plot a reality. Writers Jeb Stuart, Jeffrey Boam, M. Night Shyamalan, Frank Darabont, and Jeff Nathanson all worked on the project as Lucas and Spielberg commissioned draft after draft and the years rolled on. Finally David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-man) produced a screenplay that was deemed acceptable last year and the project was finally moved into production in June 2007.

The sheer volume of writers who were unable to produce an acceptable screenplay is not a good sign, particularly given the fact that in the same interview George Lucas said that he thought many audience members and critics wouldn’t respond to his vision and he didn’t care. While it’s normally inspiring to hear that a filmmaker is going against his commercial instincts to satisfy himself rather than watering down his vision for mass consumption, it is worrying in this case simply because Lucas said the same thing about his Star Wars prequels and they were…well…terrible. The comments aren’t enough to make the movie a write-off (Spielberg is still directing after all), but it should cause Indiana Jones fans to get nervous.