Finn said:
In that you're wrong. All these men mentioned have been at some point at least rumored to be writing a draft for Indy IV, strongest of them Shyamalan. Actually quite a few reports confirmed this in the early years of the decades we're on.
It is not known what exactly became of this Shyamalan draft.
Ahh. Maybe I was a bit rash in my judgement. But I remembered Shyamalan's parents confirming their son's attachment to the project (I remember me getting wrongly excited for the 400th time.) to some newspaper and Shyamalan himself later on speaking of a meeting with anyone besides George L and that he basically doesn't want to work on someone else's ideas and prefers to develop his own stories.
I was never contacted formally to do the project, I did publicly express interest, but nothing really ever came to fruition. I have talked with all of them besides George (Lucas), and it sounds exciting. They have their ideas and I of course as a fan, have ideas of how they should do it. They will get it done, I just don't think it will be completed for some time. It will probably be the biggest film ever made, I think it would even topple Star Wars and Titanic at this point."
(
August 2001)
"There was interest, but it just felt like they were trying to throw mud against the wall and see what stuck," says a spokesperson for Shyamalan, who's since moved on to the supernatural thriller Signs.
(
December 2001)
I'm not so secure in the metaphors used by Hollywood-folks. But to me, throwing mud against a wall doesn't exactly sound like writing a draft. In the end though, we don't know. Sounds more like having a meeting and exchanging ideas. But what do I know.
However, it looks like Gaghan has a Jones for the assignment. He recently told The Hollywood Reporter that he hopes to start banging out the new Indy adventure in the near future.
(May 2001)
There was that ABANDON
project of his at that time that he went on to direct. Gaghan's Indy IV tracks trailed away quite abruptly and we never heard about the banging out of a new adventure by Gaghan again. I'm not so sure if maybe there's an interview out there in which he mentions the circumstances of his (failed) involvement.
In 2002, when all those legal problems with Paramount were solved and the picture was "greenlit" Tom Stoppard's name was mentioned...and than disappeared in aid of Frank Darabont.
btw: That deadbolt recap is a bit weak, IndyFan. They list the Monkey King script as a draft for IndyIV? There was a solid timeline of IndyIV drafts in an Empire issue in 2006 I believe. And there's those threads about the Nathanson and Darabont drafts on this very board if that's what you want to dig into.
