Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull debuted this week at Cannes and the prominent players in the most anticipated film of the year, including Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, George Lucas, and Shia LaBeouf were all on the French shore to welcome the event. They even sat down for a press conference, a rare event to hear from some living legends. Of course, The Deadbolt had a man there and what follows are the highlights.

On releasing the film in a digital format:

Steven Spielberg: Well, the film is being released digitally, not on a lot of screens, but on about 300 screens. Making a film digitally and releasing a film in the same digital process is a beautiful image. It creates an extraordinary clean, sharp image. But making a film on celluloid, as I like to do with all of my pictures, but then transferring it and releasing it and projecting it digitally is a very inferior image. So the decision to go out with the vast majority of theaters motion picture film theaters was a simple, y’know, decision for me to make. But, y’know, digital cinema is inevitable. It’s right around the corner, and some day even I will have to convert, but right now I love shooting on film. I love film.

Harrison Ford on initially being against the skull as a plot device:

Let me just start by saying I believe you were misinformed. I had no resistance to the crystal skull as the object of Indiana Jones’ quest. The process that evolved in the script was largely between George and Steven and at the appropriate moment I had my say. And we were all very satisfied with the script that we shot before we ever exposed a frame of film. So I had no resistance whatsoever to the Crystal Skull as an object.

Spielberg on the robbery of the computer file from his offices:

Well, there was a great deal of interest in our movie, certainly, as we were making it. And there was a break in in our production office and about 3000 still photographs, basically covering the first three quarters of our entire production, we were almost finished shooting, were stolen and tuned over to a website, I won’t mention the website, and instead of printing the pictures, the website called the legal department at Lucas Film and Paramount Pictures conducted a sting operation and arrested the person who broke into the office. So the pictures were recovered without ever leaking out. But, y’know, the way we kept the movie secret is we didn’t give the script out to every single person on the crew, and we didn’t give the script out to all the agents and managers of all the people. And we were all very loyal to the story and we kept it to ourselves and we just didn’t talk about it, until now.

On the difference between good and evil and whether he believes there are new Schindlers in the world today:

Steven Spielberg: Well, the pressure that was put on me to set the film during the Cold War was the fact that nineteen years had elapsed and if you did the math we were no longer in the late thirties. We were in the era of 1957 and the era of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. And so that’s what motivated us to create these heroes and these villains in a period that would be certainly relevant to those kind of geopolitics. That’s as simple as I can answer that question.

On his first time back to Cannes since 1982 and whether we’ll see any more of Indiana Jones:

Steven Spielberg: Well, only if you want more of him. That’s the reason we made this ‘Indiana Jones’ was because we had so many people over the years come up to us, George and Harrison and myself, and basically just say, “When is another one coming out?” The only two movies anybody asks me is there going to be another one is “E.T” or ‘Indiana Jones’. No one ever asks if I’m making “A.I.” or another “1941” or “Hook”, I’ve never heard that. But I’ve been asked a lot about this movie. So certainly we’ll have our ear to the ground to hear what happens and that will decide where we go from here. I just love it here at Cannes again. It’s been 26 years since “E.T.” debuted here. And it was the last time. And the other palais, they closed it down after “E.T.” and moved into this new palais. So I’m just very honored to be back here again.

Cate Blanchett on wanting to play Indiana Jones, but getting the role of a villain instead:

It wasn’t a bad consolation prize we I couldn’t get Steven to give me the title role, I got to play a fantastic villain with an extraordinary haircut. So thank you Steven and thank you George.

George Lucas on one-upping other adventure series, like National Treasure:

We didn’t really set out to try to one-up all the imitators. We decided that we knew what we were doing and we wanted to make the best ‘Indiana Jones’ we possibly we could. And we weren’t going to have F-14’s flying under freeways, and we were going to do it very realistically with real stunts and with a real story about real people. And, y’know, what happens after that is the adventure falls out of the characters. We don’t go and say we’re going to make the most amazing chase that’s ever been made? We just go and say, what’s the story demand from this? And how can we make it as entertaining, as funny, as exciting, as suspenseful as we possibly can?

Shia’s most difficult set piece:

Definitely the jeeps because a lot of people were involved, and it was weeks of filming, and a lot of prep, a lot of different elements. And the motorcycle was really scary because Harrison was on the back and if I went down, the movie was over. (laughs)

Spielberg on the upcoming Tin Tin series and whether elements of those stories made it into The Crystal Skulls:

Well, y’know, a Mayan Temple is a Mayan Temple, and Herge’s source of inspiration was National Geographic and other travel magazines. And he was like an archeologist too. He went all over the world finding interesting place to set his adventure stories. I never heard of “TinTin” until a film critic wrote about “TinTin” comparing “TinTin” to “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” So I never heard of the books until 1981, and that’s when I got interested and went to meet Herge, and he sadly passed away. And a few weeks after his funeral we met with his widow and we were able to get the rights to his books, then I made other movies, we dropped the rights, and I picked the rights up again five years ago. And Peter Jackson and I decided to make three movies based on the “TinTin” books. I can’t announce today at this even what those books are, but the movies are being made motion capture, which means they’ll resemble some of the art of Herge. So we’re not making them live action. They’re going to be animated with actors like Ray Winstone who played “Beowulf”. Ray knows what that’s like to put on the wet suit and have the spots on his face and turn in a very serious performance, which is very challenging. And that’s how we’ll be making “TinTin”.

The Crystal Skull Crashes Cannes Page 2