Granted, this reads to us like the pinch-of-salt rumour of the day, but nonetheless, it appears that efforts are being made once more to get Sean Connery out of retirement to rejoin the Indiana Jones franchise.

Connery, of course, played Henry Jones in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, forming a formidable and very funny double act with Harrison Ford in the process. Both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were keen to bring him back for 2008's Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, but Connery turned the approach down. The actor retired after the shoot of the troubled League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and no amount of cajoling has brought him back in front of a movie camera.

Of the offer to join the Crystal Skull cast, Connery told Variety back in June 2007, "If anything could have pulled me out of retirement it would have been an Indiana Jones film. I love working with Steven and George, and it goes without saying that it is an honour to have Harrison as my son. But in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun."

A reference to Henry Jones remains in Crystal Skull, of course, but merely to confirm that the character had died.

However, never let something like that get in the way of a plan. And the current reports suggests that the script that's been prepared for Indiana Jones 5 has been put together with a reappearance of Henry Jones within it. Ireland Online quotes a source as saying, "Steven Spielberg has been working on a script with George Lucas and there is an element of the story that could see Sean returning. Anything is possible in these movies and if Sean wants to return he will become central to the new story."

The timeline of the Indiana Jones movies has zipped around quite a bit, so it's not an unfeasible idea - Temple Of Doom was, after all, set before Raiders Of The Lost Ark. However, the sticking point surely is Connery who, if he was going to return to the role would, you'd have thought, have done it last time round?

Our guess is that at best this is a fishing trip for the brains behind Indy 5, and that when the franchise returns to cinemas - probably in 2011 or 2012 - Henry Jones will be nowhere to be seen.

Ireland Online