Harrison Ford has died on the first day of filming on the new Indiana Jones film, whose full title remains a closely guarded secret. A tearful Steven Spielberg addressed a frenzied media pack hours after Ford had collapsed and died on the set in Tunisia. “I don’t know how this happened. He told me he was in great shape. I thought he was looking great for a man of his age, I mean he’s older than me and he’s still able, was able, to beat me up. Which he did, a lot. That’s why it’s been 17 years since the last one. But then…he insisted on taking a nice easy stunt to ease himself back into the role and he just…collapsed and died when trying to get off a vintage bicycle”.

Producer and co-writer George Lucas initially wanted to simply replace Ford with a photo-realistic CGI version of the actor created by his Industrial Light & Magic special effects company but it’s understood that Spielberg made him cry by asking who was the beardie with the two best Director Oscars and after that the decision was made to just recast the role.

Relatively unknown star of Firefly and Serenity, Nathan Fillion was cast in the role of Indiana Jones and the script was given a quick rewrite by David Koepp (who Spielberg refers to as “my closer”) to eliminate all references to the character being far too old for this kind of…stuff. Fillion, who had previously worked with Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan, for one scene (he was the ‘other’ Private Ryan), was delighted to take on the iconic role but after completing six scenes the film was cancelled. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but at least my batting average with Spielberg went up a bit” Fillion sighed philosophically.

Fergal Casey