Indiana Jones (franchise) in mid-2021. The series was created by George Lucas, and its films are directed by Steven Spielberg and star Harrison Ford as the title character. The Walt Disney Company has owned the "Indiana Jones" intellectual property since its acquisition of Lucasfilm, the series' production company, in 2012. Paramount retains the distribution rights to the first four films and television series. The franchise expanded to television in 1992 with the release of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", a series featuring adventures the character had as a child as he traveled around the world with his father. Marvel Comics began publishing "The
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", Lucas let the series end as he felt he could not think of a good plot device to drive the next installment, and chose instead to produce "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" for TV, which explored the character in his early years. Harrison Ford played Indiana in one episode, narrating his adventures in 1920 Chicago. When Lucas shot Ford's role in December 1992, he realized the scene opened up the possibility of a film with an older Indiana set in the 1950s. The film could reflect a science fiction 1950s B-movie, with aliens