Woman with a whip? Spielberg says a female Indiana Jones is possible

The fifth installment of the blockbuster film series is set to begin shooting this month with Harrison Ford donning the familiar fedora once again.  But speaking to the British paper The Sun, director Steven Spielberg says he can see the franchise continuing, even if the 75-year-old actor decides to bow out.

“This will be Harrison Ford’s last Indiana Jones movie, I am pretty sure, but it will certainly continue after that,” said Spielberg.  Asked if a woman could possibly take over the role, he nodded and replied, “We’d have to change the name from Jones to Joan. And there would be nothing wrong with that.”

While he knows that many fans would be upset if a woman assumed the role of the archeologist-turned-adventurer, Spielberg added that it’s time Indy took “a different form.”

The director is a champion of equality on his movie sets, and notes that on his Oscar-nominated film The Post, “Everyone was equally paid…Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep got the same paycheck exactly, right down to the perks.”  The same was true of Spielberg’s latest movie, Ready Player One.

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