Imagine you’re a super successful filmmaker, with a CV of incredible movies behind you, and you’re on the set of the fourth Indiana Jones sequel, invited by those original visionaries to take over the hot seat and bring their series home. Not only that, you know you’ll soon be heading to the galaxy far, far away and right in front of you on that Indy film set is your lead actor, Harrison Ford. How could you possibly resist the opportunity to pick the brains of an actor who’s literally seen it all? If you’re James Mangold, the temptation was too much.
Mangold was working with the Han Solo star on Dial of Destiny before getting hired to direct a Star Wars movie, but he still spent plenty of time on set picking Ford’s brain about what ideas had been pitched for the future of the galaxy far, far away. While speaking to Screen Rant, Mangold talked about his late night Star Wars chats with Ford.
“Obviously, you can’t be doing all night shoots in the middle of the Santa Clarita Valley, waiting for lighting setups to be completed and not start interviewing Harrison Ford with crazy Star Wars questions and Indy questions,” Mangold said. “Somewhere around 2 a.m. he’d start telling stories about what they were thinking of next and what they’re working on. Little did I know it would end up being me.”
Not only is he heading to the star with Lucasfilm but he’s also leaping to the DCU to direct Swamp Thing, part of ‘Gods and Monsters’, aka Phase One of the DC Universe rebuild.