Rocket Surgeon said:
Just to be clear, you're supporting your argument with events that happened
after KOTCS?
Regardless, my statement was a generalization. Fortunately, I made it in the context of a message board, where such things are fair game.
I simply think the "he did it for the money" argument is a lazy one. It implies that Spielberg's relationship with money is the same as that of the average moviegoer. Disgruntled fans can't understand why they were disappointed, so they assume,
"Oh, well he must've done it for the money. I know I would have."
But obviously, Spielberg's relationship to money is far different than the average fan's.
Does this mean he is no longer careful about money? Does this mean he no longer has the occasional trouble? Of course not. Merely that his
relationship to it is different than when he was just starting out.
Unlike the average fan, Spielberg doesn't have to look at any film project and think,
"Damn. I have to get up and go to work tomorrow." It's why he's currently planning a remake of
Harvey (ie. generally doing whatever he wants).
It is far more logical to assume that his motivation for making Indy 4 was thus:
"Lucas and Ford really want to do it. The public's been asking for 20 years. And my kids want to see another one. What the hell. It'll be fun."
Rocket Surgeon said:
Faired pretty well is not exactly glowing praise.
Yes, but "glowing praise" is.
And that's exactly what Spielberg was getting back in the 90s, when he originally decided to make Indy 4. As the decade drew to a close, the success of
Schindler's List,
Jurassic Park, and
Saving Private Ryan far outweighed the disappointments of
Hook,
Amistad, and
The Lost World.
He then agreed to make Indy 4 the followup to
Minority Report and
Catch Me If You Can- still his most critically-acclaimed films of the current decade. (92% and 96% on the TomatoMeter, respectively.)
So when agreeing to make Indy 4, he was hardly in a position where he needed to bolster his resume. Even after
War of the Worlds and
Munich, most people were simply impressed with the speed at which Spielberg had completed them. Were they among his best works? Not really, but he had definitely proven to studios that he could still bring a project in on time. (Read: Security.)
This brings us back to the most likely reason: Lucas and Ford wanted to make another one.
As Kate Capshaw recently noted,
"As long as those guys want to make an Indy film, there will be Indy films." Obviously, I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the idea. She knows- better than any of us- that the payday isn't Spielberg's strongest motivation when it comes to Indiana Jones. If it were, we could be on Indy 9 by this point.