THE PLOT:<\/b> Former Air Force Major, Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) and his sidekick Al (Steve Zahn) search for hidden treasure in Mali, while helping Dr Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz) to save the country from an environmental disaster. <\/p>
THE LOWDOWN:<\/b> In 2005, While Indiana Jones 4 was still in development hell, producer Philip Anschutz was busy putting a script together based on the Clive Cussler's 1981 book. Sahara was the first of many Dirk Pitt adventures, which meant Anschultz had an eye to a James Bond/ Indiana Jones-style franchise. <\/p>
Unfortunately, despite taking $122m at the US box office, the $200m production and distribution costs far outweighed the takings. And when Cussler took Schultz to court for not giving him enough control over the script, it put paid an end to any libgering hope of a sequel.<\/p>","url":"2008/7/31/sahara-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"sahara"},{"captionHeading":"NATIONAL TREASURE","caption":"
THE PLOT:<\/b> Historian Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) races against time - and his enemy, Ian (Sean Bean) - to find hidden treasure. However the clues to the booty's location are very hard to come by - one's even written on the back of the Declaration of Independence... <\/p>
THE LOWDOWN:<\/b> National Treasure is by no means an Indy rip-off, but the similarities are clear - a put-upon hero chasing an elusive prize, while wooing the lady and dealing with his crotchety father is pure Indy. It's not rocket science - National Treasure is an exercise in studio tick-box filmmaking - but it was certainly a good substitute while we waited for George Lucas to come up with a crap ending to an Indy film (that's enough - Ed).<\/p>","url":"2008/7/31/national-treasure-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"national treasure"},{"captionHeading":"HIDALGO","caption":"
THE PLOT:<\/b> Frank Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen) and his horse, a mustang called Hidalgo, compete in a race across the Arabian desert. Things get difficult when he becomes involved with a sheikh's daughter, whose cousin is rather keen on her. Hopkins has to fight for his life - as well as the reward for winning the race. <\/p>
THE LOWDOWN:<\/b> A rather strange choice for Mortensen's first post-Rings movie, but a decent ride all the same. The story has little relation to an Indy movie, rather, the similarites lie in the style. Director Joe Johnston's desert pallette is very much Raiders-esque, as is the 30s/ 40s adventure feel. Meanwhile Mortensen's reluctant hero is every bit as rugged as Ford's. A solid hit, hidalgo made $108m worldwide.<\/p>","url":"2008/7/31/hidalgo-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"hidalgo"},{"captionHeading":"THE PHANTOM","caption":"
THE PLOT:<\/b> Set in the 40s, the movie follows a mysterious superhero, who hides in shadows and fights to stop a rich megalomaniac from harnessing the 'ultimate power' in the form of ancient crystal skulls.<\/p>
THE LOWDOWN:<\/b> Made in 1996, The Phantom was inevitably influenced by the Indy movies - but is actually the kind of adventure story that the Indy movies were based on. The Phantom was a pulp comic hero from the 40s, whose tales of derring do were very much the like of which Lucas and Spielberg attempted to emulate with their archeaologist adventurer. Despite positive reviews, the movie, much like the similiarly themed The Shadow, flopped miserably.<\/p>","url":"2008/7/31/the-phantom-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"the phantom"},{"captionHeading":"LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER","caption":"
THE PLOT:<\/b>Archeaologist Lara Croft goes in search of a key to time itself in order to stop a secret society from taking over the world. <\/p>
THE LOWDOWN:<\/b> The Lara Croft movies take their cue from the Playstation platform games that sold by the barrell load in the 90s. However, the games themselves owe more than a little debt to the Lucasarts games of the time, most notably, the Young Indiana Jones series. In fact, the Lara Croft character is one of the ony other instances of an Archeaologist in a leading movie role. <\/p>
The PC-supplied ready-made audience didn't let Paramount Studios down, as the 2001 opening weekend grossed $48.2m - then the second highest in Paramount's history.<\/p>","url":"2008/7/31/tomb-rider-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"tomb rider"},{"captionHeading":"ROMANCING THE STONE","caption":"
THE PLOT:<\/b> Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner), is a novelist who heads to Colombia to rescue her kidnapped sister, and meets rugged adventurer Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas). Together the pair must find a precious diamond - Joan needs it to save her sister, while Jack may or may not be thinking about the money... <\/p>
THE LOWDOWN:<\/b> While Kathleen Turner's Joan supplies far more backbone than her Indy counterparts, there's no doubt that Douglas owed Harrison Ford a hefty debt. Strangely, before the film's release, the 20th Century Fox studio heads decided the film was awful in comparison to the Indy pictures, and fired director Robert Zemeckis from his next project, Coccoon. Little did they know that Romancing would go on to become Fox's biggest hit of 1984, taking $115m in the US run. Zemeckis then took over a little known movie for Universal, called Back to the Future...<\/p>","url":"2008/7/31/romancing-the-stone-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"romancing the stone"},{"captionHeading":"BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA","caption":"
THE PLOT:<\/b> Truck driver Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) inadvertently finds himself in the heart of Chinatown when his best mate's girlfriend is kidnapped. The pair end up literally in the Chinatown underworld in the search for Mao Yin (Suzee Pai), who's being used as a tool to restore an ancient sorcerer to his former glory. <\/p>
THE LOWDOWN:<\/b> Again, it's the hero rather than the plot that screams Indiana. \"At heart he thinks he's Indiana Jones,\" said Kurt Russell of his character, Jack. \"But the circumstances are always too much for him.\" A total flop on release, Big Trouble gained cult status on VHS and eventually turned a profit despite making just $11m of it's $25m budget back on original release.<\/p>","url":"2008/7/31/big-trouble-in-little-china-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"big trouble in little china"},{"captionHeading":"ALLAN QUATERMAIN'S CITY OF LOST GOLD","caption":"
THE PLOT:<\/b> Adventurer Quatermain goes in search of his long lost brother - and an even longer-lost race of people in the wilds of Africa, with Jesse Huston (Sharon Stone) in tow. <\/p>
THE LOWDOWN:<\/b> Derivative and, quite frankly, rubbish, this is in fact a sequel to King Solomon's Mines, the 1985 flop - although both films were shot at the same time. This might explain why Sharon Stone returned to a role that earned her a Golden Raspberry for Worst Actress. It's be quicker to point out the differences between this and Indy than the similarites - with the main difference being that, this was crap.<\/p>","url":"2008/7/31/allan-quaterman-the-lost-city-of-gold-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"allan quaterman & the lost city of gold"},{"captionHeading":"TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY","caption":"
THE PLOT:<\/b> It's 1938 and former fighter pilot, Jake Cutter, is a chancer running a cargo business. Along with his motley crew, Cutter searches for treasure and adventure while flying his plane and talking to his one eyed dog, Jack. <\/p>
THE LOWDOWN:<\/b> Ok so it's not a movie, but this TV show was the most blatant of all the Indy cash-ins ever made. For years, TV producer Donald Bellisario (Magnum PI, Quantum Leap) tried to get the series made, only to find backing when studios wanted to cash in on Indy's success. Unfortunately, the ratings didn't equal the production costs, and the show was canned after one season. Which is tragic when you consider a lead character was a one-eyed Jack Russell who refused to forgive his owner for losing his expensive glass eye in a game of poker.<\/p>","url":"2008/7/31/tales-of-the-gold-monkey-1.jpg","width":570,"height":364,"alt":"tales of the gold monkey"}];