The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles Indiana Jones feature films, the cast and crew frequently questioned creator George Lucas about the Indiana Jones character's life growing up. During the concept stages of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", Lucas and director Steven Spielberg decided to reveal some of this backstory in the film's opening scenes. For these scenes, Lucas chose River Phoenix to portray the character, as Harrison Ford believed that Phoenix most resembled Ford as a young man (Phoenix had appeared as Ford's son in "The Mosquito Coast"). This decision to reveal an adventure of a young Indiana led Lucas and crew to the idea
Indiana Jones (franchise) wrote eight Indiana Jones novels in the early 1990s, which were never translated to English. All of the following were published by Bantam Books, with the exception of "Army of the Dead", which was published by Del Rey. Indiana Jones novels by Wolfgang Hohlbein: Ballantine Books published a number of Indiana Jones books in the "Find Your Fate" line, written by various authors. These books were similar to the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series, allowing the reader to select from options that change the outcome of the story. Indiana Jones books comprised 11 of the 17 releases in the line,