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Lights! Camera! Geritol!
Are audiences ready for a rickety Indiana Jones?
Today’s stars keep themselves in better shape than ever before, and audiences seem to like that. In fact, box office receipts for recent flicks featuring some of our favorite aging action heroes are so encouraging that studio execs are practically rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the new Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and Sylvester Stallone (Rambo) vehicles. Stallone certainly didn’t hurt himself when his more famous screen persona—Rocky Balboa—earned critical acclaim and a respectable $70 million in last year’s titular blockbuster, chasing doubts that the actor-director was simply giving himself a starring role in order to slow a career slide.
Likewise, last year’s Live Free or Die Hard, starring 50-something Bruce Willis, raked in $134 million, and the oft-delayed Rush Hour 3 earned nearly $140 million despite its own 50-something star, Jackie Chan.
Patricia King Hanson, a film historian and executive editor of the AFI catalog, says audiences must suspend their disbelief “an awful lot” to buy someone like Ford saving the day at this stage in his life. But Ford has a helpful precedent in the Indiana Jones series; Sean Connery was in his late fifties when he starred as the senior Jones in the franchise’s last feature, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in 1989.
Ford also has an advantage yesterday’s stars didn’t have: Access to the best physical trainers his wallet can afford. If an actor took off his shirt during a movie made in the 1940s, the audience stood a better chance of seeing a spare tire than a six-pack. “John Wayne in his prime was in great shape, but he didn’t have the sculpted, muscular look,” says Hanson.
Stallone looked more fit than about 99 percent of the U.S. population in Rocky Balboa, with a physique that hearkened back to his glory days. Yet Stallone didn’t hide his or his character’s age in the film, all but flashing the Italian Stallion’s AARP card to get us to root for his character all the more. In Live Free or Die Hard, Willis’ John McClane is called “an analog watch in a digital age.”
But is it wise for aging stars to bring up a potentially sore subject?
Hanson predicts both Rambo and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will make some concessions to the aging process. “It’s one thing to act like a really fit 50-year-old and another to be a fit 50-year-old who acts like he’s 30,” she says.
Clint Eastwood’s 2000 film Space Cowboys wrung laughs out of the cast’s advanced years. “They weren’t trying to act like they were young. The joke was they were geezers,” says Hanson. So she wouldn’t be surprised to hear a saw like “I’m too old for this stuff” come out of Indiana Jones’ mouth this spring. “America can be in on the joke,” she says.
Screenwriter Jack Epps, Jr. (Top Gun, Legal Eagles), associate professor and chair of the USC’s School of Cinematic Arts’ Writing Division, isn’t so sure that approach will work. “As a writer, I would stay away from drawing attention to age,” states Epps. “It’s all about illusion and creating a new reality.”
The Indiana Jones character itself, Epps says, may help Ford’s mission to bring the franchise into the 21st century. On-screen, “Harrison Ford really felt like one of us, as opposed to someone on the edge of super powers,” observes Epps. Credit the actor for some of that perception. Recall Ford getting slugged a few times in Blade Runner or any previous Indiana Jones installment and you’ll know what Epps means. Few stars grimace with gravitas like Ford.
“Indiana Jones wasn’t infallible; he bled a lot. If he’s older, he’ll have more bruises,” he notes.
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This story was published in the Winter 2008 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
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