I am hopeful, but not optimistic
And you know, if the Hollywood people didn’t have such massive egos they would see how easy it is to continue the Indiana Jones story.
if they could find an actor who could do a GOOD JOB playing a young adult Indy - like Sean Patrick Flannery did in Young Indy - then they’ve got about 15 years of Indy’s lifespan that is unaccounted for in movies and the tv show - basically the ages of 21 to 36
Make a Harrison Ford Indy movie not with contrived time travel, but showing an unresolved thread/adventure from Indy’s past (in the early 1920s when we was starting graduate school in Archaeology) coming back at him in the present day (1960s or 70s or whatever). Throughout the movie show what young Indy experienced, went through, and how he failed back then as you show old Indy dealing with it again, but now more challenging (because he’s freakin old), until you see what he’s learned from his past experience that allows to overcome it and put it to rest (because the whole point of Indy is that he’s a smart hero, so his failing in the past as a young man would’ve meant that he would learn how to do better)
Don’t have Old Indy die or get retconned or some other dumb shit. Just make a new Young Indy story that comes back at him as Old Indy. Go back and forth between the past and the present and show here Young Indy suffers defeat in the past, Old Indy succeeds because of how much he’s learned and grown since. And as part of his success and a metaphor for Old Indy adventures, he finally manages to put whatever artifact the macguffin is into the museum.
Then you can move Old Indy into actually retiring from film with grace and victory instead of the shame of Crystal Skull (especially as Harrison Ford can’t stop getting in plane crashes, how many more does he have in him?), and have 15 years of potential adventures for Young Indy
They say Indy is Harrison Ford’s character and no one else is going to play him? Four other actors already have! He was even in one of the Young Indy episodes, although it was for a brief bookend segment, showing Old Indy reflecting on something Young Indy went through (with jazz music lol)
edit: and have Short Round be in it with Old Indy because that dude is still an actor