Mads Mikkelsen Joins ‘Indiana Jones 5’ Cast
It’s been 13 years since Indiana Jones’ last adventure, but after a long period of development, the fifth Indiana Jones now seems to be coming together very quickly. Last week, Lucasfilm announced that Phoebe Waller-Bridge was joining the cast of the film opposite the one and only Harrison Ford as Indy, and that John Williams would return to provide his fifth musical score for the series. Today, we learned that director James Mangold (replacing Steven Spielberg at the helm of the franchise) has added another terrific actor to his cast: Mads Mikkelsen.
According to Deadline, Milkkelsen will play an unspecified role in the story. (“Plot details are still vague on what new adventure awaits Jones” they note.) Given Mikkelsen’s talents and resume — he played Hannibal Lecter on the Hannibal TV series and recently replaced Johnny Depp as the Big Bad of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise — one wants to assume he must be playing the villain of the piece. Assuming around a 12-15 year gap in the story between Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Indy 5, the movie will have to be set in the late 1960s or early 1970s. That means the usual Nazis or Communists are probably out. So how about Indy versus a Danish guy? It could work.
Then again, Mikkelsen has appeared in a Lucasfilm production before — and not as the bad guy. In Rogue One, he played Galen Erso, one of the key scientists forced by the Empire to build the Death Star. (As it turned out, he built its one weakness into it on purpose so that the Rebels could destroy it.) So maybe Mikkelsen will just be some kindly archaeologist who Indy bumps into during his travels? Yeah, we doubt it too.
Indiana Jones 5 is scheduled to open in theaters on June 29, 2022.
Gallery — The Best Movie Titles in HIstory: