Dammit! That sucks! I mean, I’m sure I’ll be over it next year when the movie comes out, but hearing this now, sucks!

from darkhorizons.com:

Sallah Not In “Indiana Jones IV”
By Garth FranklinMonday April 16th 2007 7:15am

‘deciph3r’ had the chance to talk to Johnathan Rhys-Davies at the Armageddon Pulp Expo in Christchurch, New Zealand over the weekend and confirmed his “Indiana Jones IV” non-status:

“Seems he has not been asked to be in Indy 4 or even approached about it.

From the little information he had about the film he had been told through a third party that the character of Salah had been written out of Indy 4 in favour of a younger cast.”

Damn, that just…well sucks. Davies, better known as Gimli from “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, played the lovable rascal Sallah in both the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and the second sequel “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

While I understand the decision to keep him out of Indy IV, if this really is the last hurrah for Indy as Harrison Ford is concerned then why not try and bring back as many original characters from the first two as you can? That’s just my take on it. I mean, I’m sure who ever they pick to act as a replacement character will do great (as long as its not Short Round from Temple of Doom!) and with Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeof, and hopefully Sean Connery, this should be a great cast of people already attached. I’m looking at this film with an open mind.

–Socram