credit: soulless, piratical AI algorithm
Dear Disney/Lucasfilm, want to bring Indiana Jones back? Here's how you could do it.
Make a movie about a brand-new archeologist/adventurer character in the late 1920s/early 30s. For variety's sake, let's make her a woman. And maybe British and rich, to explain how a woman would have the resources and formal education to be an adventurer in her own right at that time. (So, basically Lara Croft, except not in the modern day, because archaeology/adventure stories in the modern day just plain don't work anywhere near as well.) Give this character a low-key introductory movie that's also a bit of an origin story, i.e., showing how she gets her grit. Maybe she tags along with an older brother who dies at the midpoint, or something. And, include one - no more, no less - subtle nod to IJ, such as a name-drop of Marshall College or Dr. Ravenwood. (Do not name-drop Indy.) Whenever anyone asks about a possible Indy crossover appearance in a sequel, always just shrug, wink, and say "Who knows?"
If said movie does well, make a sequel (really pushing the envelope here, I know), specifically a race for a MacGuffin with a half-dozen or so adventurers from all over the world racing to find a particular artifact. Make the setting somewhat contained, say, an island everyone is stuck on. (Maybe they've been lured there by a dangerous eccentric, in an echo of "The Most Dangerous Game"?) One of these adventurers should be an American who looks, talks, and acts like Indy, but goes by a different name, and wears a black leather jacket, with no fedora. Maybe everyone decides to go by an alias, and this guy announces himself as "James... [awkward look at his black jacket] ... James Black." The heroine and James are rivals, but also somewhat flirty, and make a tentative alliance - until the movie's midpoint, when James falls into a waterfall, to his certain death. The flick then forgets about him, and the heroine completes the adventure on her own. Then, in a post-credits scene, we see her relaxing at home as her butler brings a letter from James Black... and we flash back to James crawling out of the mud by the waterfall, injured but alive.
After a spoiler-minded grace period, the press would start demanding confirmation that James Black is, in fact, Henry Jones, Jr. The filmmakers, after insisting that this movie is still the heroine's story, would eventually concede that Black could be Dr. Jones, but it's ultimately up to the audience to decide. They have an idea for a third movie featuring the heroine, of which James Black/Indy could play a large part, but, in a refreshing show of humility, they want to hear from fandom and general audiences first. If people love the new actor and want him to come back as Indy, they're ready to make it so - but, if people roll their eyes and jeer the way audiences reacted negatively to the Johnny Depp/Grindelwald reveal at the end of Fantastic Beasts 1, then James Black needn't have been Indy; no harm, no foul.
(And, if they want to be really adventurous, they can also dive into production on a movie about one of the other adventurers on said island, to be released a year or two later. If that's also successful, Disney could have then three heroes ready to go for a potential "adventurers assemble" flick.)
And that, Disney/Lucasfilm, is how to do it.
Why do we need a reboot that sandwiches Indy Jones & Lara Croft into some weird hybrid? If you're going to make this many changes, just call it something else.
