
Spielberg and Lucas made a deal with Paramount Pictures for five Indiana Jones films. Spielberg loved it, calling it "a James Bond film without the hardware", and had the character's surname changed to Jones. Spielberg told Lucas he was interested in making a James Bond film, but Lucas told him of an idea "better than James Bond", outlining the plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark. His friend and colleague Steven Spielberg was also there, on vacation from work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In May 1977, Lucas was in Maui, trying to escape the enormous success of Star Wars. The project was stalled when Clint Eastwood hired Kaufman to write The Outlaw Josey Wales. Lucas discussed the concept with Philip Kaufman, who worked with him for several weeks and decided upon the Ark of the Covenant as the MacGuffin. Like Star Wars, it was an opportunity to create a modern version of the movie serials of the 1930s and 1940s.


The series was created by George Lucas and stars Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. A fifth film is in production and is provisionally scheduled to be released in 2023. A fourth film followed in 2008, titled The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In 1984, a prequel, The Temple of Doom, was released, and in 1989, a sequel, The Last Crusade. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., a fictional professor of archaeology, that began in 1981 with the film Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Indiana Jones is an American media franchise based on the adventures of Dr.

Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure (1993)
