Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a 2008 American adventure movie directed by Steven Spielberg. The story of the movie was written by Spielberg and executive producer George Lucas. Set in 1957, this fourth movie in the Indiana Jones movie series is based around an older and wiser Indiana Jones (played by Harrison Ford) against agents of the Soviet Union–led by Spalko (Cate Blanchett)–for the crystal skull. Indy is helped by his former lover Marion Ravenwood (played by Karen Allen), Mutt (played by Shia LaBeouf) and friend Mac (played by Ray Winstone). John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, and Ian McDiarmid also play fellow academics.
The movie was in "development hell" since the 1989 release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, because Spielberg and Ford did not agree over Lucas's choice of the skull as the center plot device. Screenwriters Jeb Stuart, Jeffrey Boam, M. Night Shyamalan, Frank Darabont and Jeff Nathanson wrote early versions, before David Koepp's script was chosen by all three men. Shooting finally started on June 18, 2007, and took place in New Mexico, New Haven, Connecticut, Hawaii, Fresno, California, and at soundstages in Los Angeles. This movie uses more stunts than CGI (computer generated images) so that the movie looks like the rest in the series. The music was created once again by John Williams.