Thursday, April 24, 2008

INDIANA JONES is set to steal the show at the Cannes Film Festival according to the London Times:
This year for all the combined star wattage of Eastwood, Penn, Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, Penélope Cruz, Benicio del Toro, Scarlett Johansson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mike Tyson and Diego Maradona, who are all expected to attend, it is the world premiere of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that is likely to stir up the biggest frenzy among the 30,000 film industry representatives who will descend on the Riviera between May 14 and May 25. Nineteen years after he last flexed his bullwhip in anger, Harrison Ford returns as the adventurous archaeologist with a fear of snakes and a flair for smart one-liners. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the first three films in the series, grossed $1.2 billion at the global box office between 1981 and 1989.

Indiana Jones’s creator and executive producer, George Lucas, and the films’ director Steven Spielberg have between them made 13 of the top 100 grossing movies. Whether they can repeat the trick with the fourth film hinges on their lead actor – who is now 65 – according to Nick James, editor of Sight and Sound magazine. “It’s about whether or not we can buy Harrison Ford still doing this stuff,” he said. “Can you revive a franchise this long after the event? Probably you can, because a lot of people won’t be able to resist.”
Indeed.