Indiana Jones 5 To Begin Filming Next Week, According To Harrison Ford

You know what they say: trust him. 

Indiana Jones fans have been anxiously awaiting the release of the fifth franchise installment, and if lead actor Harrison Ford is to be believed, the project will get off the ground faster than you can say "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." 

According to Ford, who has played the historian-archaeologist-adventurer since the 1981 flick Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones 5 "should be starting to shoot sometime next week" — the week of Monday, June 10. 

The actor divulged the information when speaking with Variety during the premiere of The Secret Life of Pets 2 at the Fox Theatre in the Westwood Village suburb of Los Angeles. (Ford voices a Welsh Sheepdog named Rooster in the animated comedy pic, coming to theaters on June 7.)

Of the hotly anticipated fifth Indiana Jones movie, which has Steven Spielberg at the helm, Ford said, "I'm looking forward to it. Things are coming along well."

Director Spielberg originally planned for Indiana Jones 5 to begin shooting in April of this year, with production taking place in England. He made the announcement during the speech he gave at the Rakuten TV Empire Awards in London in March 2018: "It's always worth the trip when I get to work with this deep bench of talent coming out of the U.K. The actors, and the crew, the chippies, the sparks, the drivers — everybody who has helped me make my movies here, and will continue helping me make my movies here when I come back in April 2019 to make the fifth Indiana Jones movie right here."

It's unclear what caused the delay in shooting, though it's likely down to the same production issues that plagued the film previously and pushed its release date back almost an entire year from July 10, 2020 to July 9, 2021. Likewise, it remains unconfirmed whether Indiana Jones truly will kick off principal photography next week. Such a start date would track with Disney's standing plans to release the film in 2021 — but even if Ford was talking out of turn and Indiana Jones won't begin filming until later this year or early next, there would still be plenty of time between then and summer 2021 to shoot, edit, and distribute the movie. 

Plot details for Indiana Jones are being kept in the same refrigerator that saved ol' Indy from death via nuclear blast, though we know a few things about the flick: Shia LaBeouf isn't reprising his role as Indiana's son Mutt Williams, Indiana won't die in the movie, and the film "won't be just a one-off" — despite the overall future of the franchise remaining hazy for the time being. 

We should know in the next few days whether Ford was telling a white lie or being totally straight-up about when Indiana Jones 5 begins filming.