Rolling Back the Years: Harrison Ford Was De-Aged For Substantial Part Of New ‘Indiana Jones’ Movie, But He’s Still Indy
CGI may make Harrison Ford resemble the Indiana Jones we met in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but that doesn’t mean the 79-year-old actor can’t still run with his younger co-stars.
That was evident when Disney showed some exclusive footage from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at CinemaCon in Las Vegas Wednesday.
Harrison Ford couldn’t be there in person, but he sent a video introducing the clip.
“Hello CinemaCon! Playing Indiana Jones all these years has meant the world to me. (The movies) have adventure and heart — and for some reason snakes.” In a charming call back to the original Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ford added, “Why did it have to be snakes?”
Ford said that the entire Indiana Jones team is “thrilled” for everyone to experience their new film on the “biggest and best screens.” Disney’s head of theatrical distribution Tony Chambers teed up the Ford intro. “We are cranking up to 11 with a high-stakes adventure,” Chambers noted before praising director James Mangold’s “amazing job” of directing the new installment. “This is a big-screen, must-see movie event.”
Mangold also was not present.
The minutes-long clip showed a thrilling chase sequence through narrow streets with Ford behind the wheel of a mini motorized cart as he faces off with new franchise member Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character, and they both seek to evade a gang of gun-toting bad guys that are hot on their respective trails. Through the swerving and death-defying maneuvering (Waller-Bridge punches, leaps and jumps cars and at one point is seen hanging out of the back of a car window in full action star mode), the two are bickering back and forth about the dial.
Indy’s line “I didn’t come here to rescue you from your fiancée,” got some laughs and big applause in the CinemaCon crowd.
Keeping the film series’ ongoing Nazi theme alive, the story revolves around an ancient device being chased by both Jones and a villain played by Mads Mikkelsen, who says: “Hitler made mistakes, and with this I will correct them all.”
The film however capped off a Disney presentation that also included first looks at Gareth Edwards’ sci-fi The Creator being released by New Regency, a 20-minute preview of Elemental, and a scene of Melissa McCarthy singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid live-action film.
Mangold has said elsewhere that Ford spends approximately 25 minutes of the sequel de-aged to appear around the age he was in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Dial of Destiny team previously disclosed that new VFX technology was created for the film in order to de-age Ford, but it is now apparent this was for an extended act of the movie and not just a simple flashback scene.
Mangold called Ford “incredibly gifted and agile,” which made it easy for the actor to “pretend that he was 35” when filming the scenes.
“But the technology involved is a whole other thing,” Mangold said. “We had hundreds of hours of footage of him in close-ups, in mediums, in wides, in every kind of lighting, night and day. I could shoot Harrison on a Monday as, you know, a 79-year-old playing a 35-year-old, and I could see dailies by Wednesday with his head already replaced.”
Also starring in the fifth Indiana Jones adventure are Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davies, Shaunette Renee Wilson, Thomas Kretschmann, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Oliver Richters and Ethann Isidore.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is scheduled to hit theaters June 30th.