The Harrison Ford Classics You Won't Be Able To Watch On Netflix Anymore
Bad news for action fans with Netflix subscriptions: The end-of-the-year-streaming rights scramble is looming over your head like, say, a giant boulder ready to crash down after you.
That's because one of the greatest adventure series of all-time (plus Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) is leaving Netflix December 31. It's a massive blow, to lose all four Indiana Jones movies –– Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, The Last Crusade and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull –– at once, one it might take awhile to wrap your head around.
Just imagine, you think it's bad because there's no more truck chase, no more bridge showdown, no more three challenges in the Grail temple, no more nuked fridge. Then you realize you also lose all the little things too: an incredibly young Alfred Molina in the intro sequence to Raiders of the Lost Ark; the heart-stopping, and heart-removing, terror of Mola Ram; all the banter with the late, great Sean Connery in The Last Crusade; Cate Blanchett's best Ukrainian accent in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. What a bummer. Weren't we all supposed to be looking forward to 2021?
Will Indiana Jones be available for streaming elsewhere?
The good news is that fans of the series who don't own copies on physical media will probably have other options soon. Disney announced December 10 that production on a fifth Indiana Jones movie is expected to begin in the spring for a planned 2022 release. The new installment will star a returning Harrison Ford in what's being billed as the character's final adventure (honest, we swear this time) and will be directed by James Mangold, who already retired one aging action hero in 2017's Logan.
While Disney obtained the rights to make more Indiana Jones content in its purchase of Lucasfilm back in 2012, Paramount still technically owns the distribution rights to the previous four installments in the series. Paramount has its own branded cable channel, the Paramount Network, but isn't currently a player in streaming. In this age of corporate synergy, it makes all the sense in the world for Raiders and the rest to migrate to Disney+ for their new online home.
Hopefully fans looking to kick off 2021 with a bang, or a rolling boulder, will get more information soon.