Somewhere in the crush of publicity for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, you might have heard that an early version of Indy 4 was scripted by that master of the Stephen King prison movie, Frank Darabont. Among the people who spoke highly of the Darabont script was…Frank Darabont, who made it clear while doing publicity for The Mist over a year ago that he wouldn’t be sending George Lucas any congratulatory bouquets. “I spent a year of very determined effort on something I was very excited about, working very closely with Steven Spielberg and coming up with a result that I and he felt was terrific. He wanted to direct it as his next movie, and then suddenly the whole thing goes down in flames because George Lucas doesn't like the script,” Darabont told MTV. “I told him he was crazy. I said, ‘You have a fantastic script. I think you're insane, George.’ You can say things like that to George, and he doesn't even blink. He's one of the most stubborn men I know.” When asked if he’d like to share his version of Indy with the world, Darabont replied, “I would love it, but it's not my material to disseminate.”
Apparently, someone disseminated it, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. Last week a PDF document purporting to be Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods by Frank Darabont surfaced online. Lawyers torpedoed it before we could get our hands on it, and although it’s probably still easy enough to track down, we’re slow readers anyway. So we thought we’d take a spin around the Indysphere and see if there’s any consensus about this alleged artifact.
The first thing that’s apparent: No LaBeouf. That’s right, the character of “Mutt” is entirely absent from City of the Gods. Again, per MTV: “No Mutt Williams; no Mac; a tougher, more Raiders-esque Marion; and a climax that not only gives Indy something to do (how in the world did David Koepp think to give Indy nothing?) but forces him to make a decision that rivals the end of Crusade (the cup or a father's love?), crystallizing the character and his history into one momentous singularity.” And here we thought One Momentous Singularity was the new James Bond movie.
According to the Feed, “the script is largely the same, storywise, focusing on the discovery of the crystal skull, as well as the lost city in Peru where the Gods were thought to live, only to discover that these "gods" were aliens with a culture advanced thousands of years beyond our own. Also, Marion Ravenwood is in the script…and, to my surprise, the ‘nuking the fridge’ sequence and the giant ants are there, as well. However, also in this script are Dr. Henry Jones, Sr. and Sallah, making awesome cameo appearances that really help cement the whole history of Indiana Jones, and tie the whole saga together.”
Of course, Darabont was not the only big name scribe to take a whack at Indy. Again we turn to MTV, where M. Night Shyamalan was queried about his involvement in shaping the story of the fourth installment. “I was just gathering information at that point from all the deities,” Shyamalan said, referring to Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, [Frank] Marshall, and George Lucas. “I haven’t seen the new one yet. I can’t wait… I understand there are a few things we all talked about that are there.” I’m going to be generous and assume Night came up with the quicksand.
Related:
Screengrab Rant: Indiana Jones in 2008
Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Hollywood Accountants