No Indiana without Ford - Lucas

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull premiered in Cannes

Shia LaBeouf will not be taking the lead role in a future Indiana Jones movie, film-maker George Lucas says.

Lucas had previously hinted that a possible fifth adventure would centre not on Harrison Ford's character Indiana Jones but on son Mutt Williams.

LaBeouf played Williams in this summer's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

But, in a television interview with AP Television, Lucas stated Harrison Ford "is Indiana Jones".

"If it was Mutt Williams it would be Mutt Williams and the Search for Elvis or something," Star Wars creator Lucas added.

Lucas first mentioned the possibility of Indiana Jones passing the baton onto his son in an interview with Fox News in May.

We're doing research now to see if we can't come up with another object for him to chase George Lucas

"I have an idea to make Shia the lead character next time and have Harrison come back like Sean Connery did in the last movie," he said at the time.

But he now appears to have changed his mind.

"The franchise really depends on me coming up with a good idea," he said.

"And that series is very research intensive.

"So we're doing research now to see if we can't come up with another object for him to chase... hopefully we'll come up with something."