While Kingdom of the Crystal Skull introcued Mutt Williams – the long-lost son of Indiana Jones – Shia LeBeouf and the character of Mutt won’t be returning in 30th June’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny…but the fate of the character will be addressed, according to director James Mangold.
The upcoming film is the fifth in the beloved Harrison Ford-starring franchise, and the first to be helmed by Mangold, 59, taking the reins from Steven Spielberg. It follows the events of the divisive fourth film, 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which infamously introduced Mutt, Indy’s motorcycle-loving, vine-swinging greaser of a son, played by Shia LaBeouf — an addition that was not welcomed by a lot of fans, and was later criticized by the actor himself. LaBeouf and his character will not be in Dial of Destiny, and Mangold promises audiences will “find out what happened” to him, but of course, won’t say more.
What he can say is that the film opens in 1944 with a “blast of classic Indy action, me doing my very best version of Steven [Spielberg], and Harrison doing his best version of being under 40.” A glimpse of the opening sequence, which features a digitally de-aged version of the 80-year-old actor, appears in the first teaser trailer that was released earlier this month.
From there, the film “tumbles” (per Mangold) right into 1969, where the bulk of the story takes place. When looking at the first three films — all of them set in the 1930s — the director says he was struck by the “wonderful synergy between this kind of pulpy cinematic style of the films, and the period itself and the cinematic language of that day.”
