Sean Connery Turned Down ‘Indiana Jones 4’ Because the Role Was Too Small

It is you, junior! 

Sean Connery is very much retired, but it just so happens he did seriously consider coming back for 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

However, he was was unimpressed with the pitch from Steven Spielberg. 

With Blade Runner 2049 out on Blu-ray this week, and Harrison Ford’s next project reportedly Indiana Jones 5, it is time to look back on just what happened with Connery’s Henry Jones Sr.

The Oscar-winning Connery, now 87, finally had enough of making movies after an immensely stressful production for 2003’s panned The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. 

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“The last one I did, [Gentlemen director Stephen Norrington] was given $85 million to make a movie in Prague, but unfortunately he wasn’t certified before he started because he would have been arrested for insanity,” Connery told a reporter in a 2007 interview unearthed by Heat Vision. “So, we worked as well as we could, and [I] ended up being heavily involved in the editing and trying to salvage.” 

Connery subsequently dusted his hands off and walked away from Hollywood, but a few years down the road he did take a call from Spielberg, who tried to get Connery out of retirement for Crystal Skull, he said. At the time, the possible casting was reported, but a canned PR statement was put out that the actor was having too much fun in retirement and wished the production the best.

But, it seems there was more to the story. 

“I spoke with Spielberg, but it didn’t work out,” Connery said in the 2007 interview. “It was not that generous a part, worth getting back into the harness and go for. And they had taken the story in a different line anyway, so the father of Indy was kind of really not that important. I had suggested they kill him in the movie, it would have taken care of it better.” 

Connery stood firm in the interview that he was totally done with making movies. However, he did provide the voice of Sir Billi for the 2012 animated comedy under the same title. 

Watch the interview below: