It’s been a genuinely long, strange road that Indiana Jones 5 has taken so far in its journey to screens everywhere. It was already a tenuous proposition, given that Indy himself, Harrison Ford, will be nearly 80 when the film finally comes out, and that this particular project has spent what feels like an eternity in development hell (though we know it’s still short compared to the wait we had for Crystal Skull). First came the news that Ford v. Ferrari director James Mangold was going to take over the reins from Steven Spielberg (and now that we know that he’s doing a semi-autobiographical drama as his next film after West Side Story, we shouldn’t be too surprised that he decided to step away from this huge project), which silenced some skeptical voices and made some even more nervous. Then, last Friday, it was announced that Fleabag maestro Phoebe Waller-Bridge would join the film as its female lead, which was unassailable good news, and a few folks hesitantly began to ask a controversial question: Could this movie be good, actually?
Well, on Thursday, we got another big hint that it might actually turn out well for audiences everywhere, as, according to Deadline, Mads Mikkelsen has joined the project. They aren’t sure who he might be playing, given how closely-held the secrets of this film are, but there’s a not-insignificant chance that he might be playing the film’s bad guy.
Mikkelsen, like a lot of great European actors, tends to get typecast when he appears in Hollywood projects — he’s an incredibly gifted actor, and he’s an excellent comedian — but, in his case, that’s pretty understandable: His feature-set is picture-perfect for a certain kind of bad guy. Hell, most American audiences were introduced to him as Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, where he bought the Daniel Craig Bond-age to a visceral new level by incorporating a shocking amount of cock-and-ball torture into the typical Bond Baddie routine. Anyway, if he is indeed playing the villain, this will add another notch to his Iconic Villain bedpost: Aside from Bond, he’s already been in a Marvel movie (Dr. Strange), played Hannibal Lecter in a beloved TV adaptation of Thomas Harris’ novels, creeped the hell out of anyone who played Death Stranding, and he’s also taking over the role of Grindelwald from Johnny Depp in the next Fantastic Beasts movie. That’s a hell of a career, and that’s only been in the past decade. Again, if there’s any news that could make us think that this won’t be a disaster, it’s probably this.
Indiana Jones 5 will hit theaters on July 29, 2022. No clue if that date will hold, but it’s nice to dream, huh?