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The makers of the new Indiana Jones film have made the surprise decision not to throw a lavish party to celebrate its launch at the Cannes Film Festival, amid spiralling rumours that the summer’s most eagerly-awaited premiere isn’t all that good.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will debut on Sunday, 19 years after Harrison Ford last hung up his fedora.

But early feedback from industry executives who were shown the film in Los Angeles last week has been less than positive.

Mindful of the atrocious publicity which greeted the 2006 Cannes opener The Da Vinci Code, when Sony splashed out close to £1 million on a glitzy after-party only for the film to be savaged that night by the critics, Paramount Pictures has downgraded plans for the Indiana Jones launch.

In place of the spectacular shindig which everyone was expecting, there will be a low-key “film-makers party” for a select guest list of 250 people - minuscule by Cannes standards.

According to the industry magazine Variety, Indiana Jones “faces a challenge more terrifying and dangerous than anything else he’s encountered on screen: the Cannes crowd”.

George Lucas, the film’s writer and executive producer, has given interviews aimed at lowering audience expectations.

“When you do a movie like this, a sequel that’s very, very anticipated, people anticipate ultimately that it’s going to be the Second Coming. And it’s not. It’s just a movie, just like the other movies,” he said, referring to the Indiana Jones trilogy.

“You probably have fond memories of the other movies. But if you went back and looked at them, they might not hold up the same way your memory holds up.”

He added: “You’re not going to get a lot of accolades doing a movie like this. All you can do is lose.”

Lucas has experience of sequels which struggle to live up to the hype, after reviving his Star Wars franchise in 1999.

The first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, was released in 1981, followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984 and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. Between them, they have grossed $1.2 billion.

The new film cost a reported $125 million and is set in the 1950s, with archaeological adventurer Indy now a Second World War hero. Ford is back in action mode aged 65, although this time he has a young sidekick, played by Shia LaBeouf. …[…]

Source and full article: telegraph.co.uk/