Karen Allen says that an early version of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny focused more on Indy and Marion.
SPOILERS for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Indy (Harrison Ford) and Marion (Karen Allen) tied the knot at the end of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and were headed for wedded bliss. However, Marion doesn’t seem to be in the picture in The Dial of Destiny, but Karen Allen told Variety that that wasn’t always the case.
While Karen Allen does make a cameo in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the actress had imagined that she would have had a bigger role given where the last movie left off. “I think because the last time you see Indy and Marion, they’ve gotten married,” Allen said. “I don’t know that I thought we’d pick up from where we left off, but I did always imagine that it would be a story with Indy and Marion going forward.” Allen added that when Steven Spielberg was still attached to direct the movie, “the scripts were more focused on an Indy/Marion story. But when Steven stepped aside and James [Mangold] came in, he started fresh with new writers and they just went in the direction they went in. They were going to tell a different story. That’s not to say that I had ever read a script that Steven was working on, because I hadn’t. But I just knew from conversations that we’d had that the ongoing story had involved Marion in a much bigger way than the story that they ended up with.“
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny revealed that Indy and Marion separated after Mutt (Shia LaBeouf) was killed in Vietnam, which Karen Allen admitted “disappointed” her. “I knew that there had been talk that they did not want to go forward with Shia, so I knew that something in the story had to create the potential for him to not be there in a way that made sense,” Allen said. “I didn’t know that he was going to die in Vietnam until I read the script, oh gosh, maybe just it was maybe six months before they were going to start shooting. I was deeply happy that Marion came back at least the end of their story. If this is indeed truly the last film of this particular group of films — if this is the last story with Harrison as Indy and me as Marion — I was profoundly happy that it didn’t end without them coming back together. That meant a lot to me, to feel like they were going to ride off in the sunset together.“
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is now playing in theaters, so be sure to check out a review from our own Chris Bumbray and let us know what you thought of the movie as well!