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) fact, rather than myth." MacGregor's favorite book was "The Seven Veils", which featured real-life explorer Percy Fawcett and the death of Indiana's wife, Deirdre Campbell. Martin Caidin wrote the next two novels in Bantam's series, "Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates" and "Indiana Jones and the White Witch". These feature Gale Parker as Indiana's sidekick; they introduced afterwords to the series, regarding each novel's historical context. Caidin became ill, so Max McCoy took over in 1995 and wrote the final four novels: "Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone", "Indiana Jones and the Dinosaur Eggs", "Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth",