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Harrison Ford’s explosive Indiana Jones stunt nearly caused disaster

Indiana Jones movies are packed with action, so Harrison Ford has performed his fair share of Indiana Jones stunts. One of them nearly went very wrong.

Harrison Ford had a near-miss during an explosive Indiana Jones stunt

It’s really impressive that Harrison Ford is still up for Indiana Jones stunts, even as he moves into his ninth decade. When he last played the character in the Indiana Jones movies 15 years ago, he had a near-miss with a potentially disastrous box of explosives.

Ford first played Indiana Jones in one of the best Steven Spielberg movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and has since reprised the role several times. More than 40 years later, we’re expecting the Indiana Jones 5 release date this year, for Ford’s last go at wielding the whip.

In a 2008 interview with The Guardian to mark the arrival of fourth movie Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Ford said that one particular sequence involving a vehicle crashing through a wall came within a whisker of causing him serious damage.

“It was supposed to look like the car was causing the wall to fly through the air and that I was driving through it, but it came just a millisecond before I went through… And I looked down and right next to me on the seat there’s this big-assed box of explosives that had survived. If it had gone off, it would have caused a stitchable [wound].”

You can watch the finished version of the scene for yourself here:

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Ford is certainly a committed thriller star and has starred in many of the best action movies of all time, earning his fair share of what he refers to as “war wounds”. One of the most serious came about in 2016, when he suffered a broken leg due to an accident on the set of Star Wars movie The Force Awakens.

We hope that Ford looks after himself in the wake of Indy 5. With Han Solo dead and Indy hanging up his fedora for good, it might be a good time for one of the best actors ever to say goodbye to action and leave the war wounds behind.

As for the last of the new movies to feature Indy, find out what our critic at the Cannes Film Festival 2023 thought in his spoiler-free Indiana Jones 5 review from the festival. Or find out the weird reason George Lucas didn’t want Ford as Indiana Jones.

We’ve also got guides to the best movies coming this year, including the Dune 2 release date, The Equalizer 3 release date, and the Oppenheimer release date.