James Mangold in Talks to Replace Steven Spielberg as the Indiana Jones 5 Director

Legendary director Steven Spielberg is officially handing over the reins of the forthcoming fifth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise to a younger director. Ford v Ferrari director James Mangold is currently in talks to take over as director.

Spielberg will still oversee the project in some capacity as a producer, and Harrison Ford is still onboard to star in the film. According to THR, the decision to hire a different director for the Indiana Jones franchise came from Spielberg himself, with a source close to Spielberg disclosing that he “decided to step down so that the next generation of filmmakers could usher the franchise forward.”

The film’s release date has been pushed back multiple times. The project was first announced in March 2016 by Disney and Lucasfilm with a prospective July 19, 2019, release date that was later pushed to July 10, 2020. In June 2018, a new writer was brought on to completely revamp the material, which further delayed the film’s release to July 9, 2021.

Spielberg is currently working on his remake of West Side Story from Warner Bros., with a release date scheduled for December of this year. Mangold’s Best Picture-nominated Ford v Ferrari took home two Oscars earlier this month.