The A.V. Club Try to picture an American James Bond.
It might seem like a redundant exercise today; Americans make plenty of movies about globetrotting superheroes and superspies—a surplus, even—and anyway, Bond movies are so big and so international that their Britishness is more a matter of rigorously upheld tradition than precious national resource. But the American Bond concept is exactly what Steven Spielberg had in mind when he and George Lucas started discussing Lucas’ idea for a globetrotting, graverobbing adventurer called Indiana Smith. (The name change came a little later.
) Spielberg wanted to direct a 007 film and, presumably unable to break through the Lewis Gilbert/John Glen stranglehold on that series, he decided maybe this could be his Bond. It didn’t exactly work out that way. Bond movies appeared near-annually for their first decade of existence, and eventually started shuffling their lead actors in and out of the role; the first burst of Indiana Jones activity only resulted in three movies.
(Bond was at a low ebb during the same time period and still cranked out five movies with two different Bonds.) Two more sequels followed with even bigger gaps, and in 2023, it became the rare modern franchise to actually end. James Bond might remind us to never say never again, of course, but seems like just the right confluence of factors: A star who has since passed 80, original creators no longer directly involved, a story specifically designed to send off th.
