Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull focus on the "Star Wars" prequels. In 2000, Spielberg's son asked when the next "Indiana Jones" film would be released, which made him interested in reviving the project. The same year, Ford, Lucas, Spielberg, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy met during the American Film Institute's tribute to Ford, and decided they wanted to enjoy the experience of making an "Indiana Jones" film again. Spielberg also found returning to the series a respite from his many dark films during this period, such as "A.I. Artificial Intelligence", "Minority Report", and "Munich". Lucas convinced Spielberg to use aliens in the plot by saying
Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix was featured as a central villain. After this game, LucasArts briefly considered making a game named "Spear of Destiny" (involving the spear of Longinus). They eventually abandoned the idea of creating a classical adventure game in the "Indiana Jones" series, instead focusing on "Tomb Raider"-style 3D action games. Thus, ending it with the release of "Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine", followed by "Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb" and "Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings". Since the game, "Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix" was canceled, Dark Horse Comics released a four-part comic book series based upon it.