But Spielberg didn't really say that at all. He said the upcoming Indiana Jones film would be the last for Harrison Ford, so the series could only continue in a different form (i.e. as a reboot). A tabloid straight up asked him if rebooted Indiana Jones could be a woman, and he nodded -- it's 2018, and saying otherwise would needlessly anger the wrong people. "We'd have to change the name from Jones to Joan," he added. Which was a joke; surnames don't work like that.Â
Throw in the fact that Spielberg doesn't own the rights to Indiana Jones (Disney will decide where the franchise goes next), and you realize that asking about anything beyond his personal involvement is futile. But interviewers do this all the time. They give a leading question about a film, get a vague "sure," then run with the scoop. For example, interviewers have been asking Scarlett Johansson about a solo Black Widow movie for years, resulting in headlines like ...

... which is misleading because at the time of that headline, there was no "Black Widow movie" in the works at all. Or they'll ask Marvel captain Kevin Feige, leading to the headline ...

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