A new rumor provides details about an aborted ending for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny that depicted Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character taking Indy’s hat and taking over for him.
This new rumor comes courtesy of scooper WDW Pro, but comes in the wake of numerous rumors that Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company planned to have Waller-Bridge’s character take over the Indiana Jones franchise.
Back in June 2021, YouTuber Overlord DVD shared that a number of sources informed him that “two endings are supposedly being considered in this script. I guess they’ve been written and they are going to shoot both of them. Both endings allegedly have old Indiana Jones dying at the end of this movie.”
“But in one of the rumored endings, young Indiana Jones dies alongside old Indiana Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge swoops in like a vulture, picks the hat up, and takes his place moving forward,” he adds.
A separate rumor from The Daily Mail in September 2021 claimed, “Phoebe Waller-Bridge is being tipped to replace the veteran actor as a female version of the fictional professor of archaeology in the adventure movie franchise.”
An anonymous source told The Daily Mail’s Showbusiness Editor Katie Hind about the rumor, “It would be a huge statement, and a great role for Phoebe.”
Another source stated, “The gossip on the set is that this character will slot into the leading role.”
Overlord DVD would follow-up his initial rumor claiming that the film actually had six endings in November, “We’ve been told out of the six endings they tested the best one gets a 35% approval from test audiences.”
“We’ve been told that Bridge put the hat on in every ending,” he added.
Overlord DVD then clarified, “All my spies actually said was Phoebe Waller-Bridge puts on Indy’s hat, takes Indy’s whip, and in a brave and stunning display of girl power she becomes the besest Indy evar at the end of all six version of the movie.”
Now, this new rumor from WDW Pro shares highly specific details about the ending and how Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character would take Indiana Jones’ hat and seemingly the franchise.
The scooper explained, “Indiana Jones was going to be lying on the grass with Archimedes there … but he was going to convince Phoebe Waller-Bridge to leave him there, and save Teddy and the others, go back through time. They could not take him with them and he would give her his hat, tell her it’s time for her adventures, yadda, yadda, yadda.”
“She, and Teddy, and the other gentlemen that are there then attempt to escape through a very significant action sequence and they go through the time rift,” he continued. “And then you find that she after going back to the original date that she would have learned her lesson in the final scene where she is no longer out to make money off of these artifacts, but instead she is working to get them to museums where they belong.”
“And then there was going to be a second appearance where after that fades out, Indiana Jones is back with Archimedes in the past and it turns out that he had a clever plan an entire time,” he relayed.
“And that was that he tells Archimedes that he will explain the Dial of Destiny to him and tell him all kinds of secrets if only he will write one special message on there,” WDW Pro said. “And he has him do so in a language Indy knows. The message is something to the effect of tell her you love her and tell him he’ll die if he goes to war.”
“And then it was going to go for the very last scene to Indy when he takes the Dial of Destiny from Basil. It goes to where Indy takes the Dial of Destiny away from him when he’s supposed to destroy it and then he sees that message in a language that he understands and he gets kind of wide-eyed and shocked and that was going to be the end of the film,” he shared.
WDW Pro finished, “It left the audience hanging as to whether or not he was successful in saving his marriage and saving Mutt based on the message that was sent.”
This new rumor comes amid Harrison Ford admitting to Spanish-language outlet Espinof that the last thing he shot was the film’s ending with Karen Allen, which led many observers to believe that the ending was indeed reshot.
He said, “We did a little work on the ending, which is the last thing I shot — with Karen Allen, who has been in a substantial part of the whole thing, but appears in this story only briefly, at the end, but with a very strong, emotional hook. I felt nostalgia, a sense of accomplishment. I’m proud of the film, happy with the film.”
“Every good thing, you know, there comes a right time to go on to something else. I really enjoyed the process of making this film. I’m very happy with it. So I left the set that day content,” Ford concluded.
Indiana Jones: ¿Qué fue lo último que rodó Harrison Ford como Indiana Jones? pic.twitter.com/XR9qnc3grj
— Espinof (@espinof_com) June 13, 2023
On top of Ford’s comments, the film’s composer John Williams also admitted that he would be returning to the set to shoot a new ending.
Williams said during a concert appearance, “So, we have just about completed the film. We have maybe another ending to shoot and to record. Maybe in a couple weeks.”
Last night, John Williams told his audience that they are shooting a new ending to Indiana Jones V in a couple weeks.
Thanks to @doomcock for the find. Added captions for you.@wdwpro1 @ValliantRenegad pic.twitter.com/FZUOpjOpX7
— Jonas J. Campbell (@JonasJCampbell) December 14, 2022
This rumor also comes after Karen Allen spoke to Variety about how many days she shot and what her experience was like on the set.
She said, “I think I was [shooting] for two days. But they wanted me to come out early and have plenty of time to play with the costume designer. We had decided to put me in a gray wig that had been built for me, but James and I hadn’t seen it.”
“So I came out about two weeks early,” Allen relayed. “It was nice, because I hung out on the set a bit and got to watch them shooting and got to meet everyone. You know, Phoebe was there, and John Rhys-Davies, and Harrison, and that lovely young man, Ethann [Isidore]. It just gave me a chance to move back into that world a little bit without just jumping onto the set to shoot.”
Of note, is the fact that Allen noted they built a wig for her, but neither she nor the film’s director James Mangold had seen it.
Wigs are a labor and time intensive process to create. Outfitter Wigs, which describes itself as “one of the oldest wig shops in Hollywood,” notes their custom wigs can take 5-10 days to create. However the shop also notes “if there’s a deadline you need to meet, we can expedite the order.”
What do you make of this rumored alternate ending for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny?