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Outlook: Indiana Jones: The kids who remade a blockbuster

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13/06/2023 GMT

Indiana Jones: The kids who remade a blockbuster

BBC World Service - Outlook, Indiana Jones: The kids who remade a blockbuster

In 1982 Mississippi two boys recreated a $22m film – on their pocket money

In 1982 Mississippi two boys recreated a $22m film, shot-for-shot, on their pocket money. It would take them seven years and swallow them whole.

In 1982, in Mississippi, two boys Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala, aged 10 and 11, embarked on a crazy mission: to remake Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark, shot-for-shot, in their back garden. 

One of Hollywood’s biggest franchises, a 22-million-dollar blockbuster that had umpteen foreign locations, more than 500 extras – completely remade by kids on just their pocket money. Truck chase? They’d do it. Indy fights Nazis aboard a World War II submarine? They’d hunt a real sub down. The project would take them more than seven years to complete – in the final film you can see them age, hear their voices deepen. There’d be fires, visits to the emergency ward, production shut down by angry parents and many fallouts. It would swallow them whole.

But decades later a lost tape would be unearthed, bringing Eric and Chris back together for their final scene and face-to-face with one of their heroes.

Presenter: India Rakusen
Producer: Edgar Maddicott

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

(Image: Eric Zala (top left), Chris Strompolos (centre) Credit: Design by Rob Grom. Illustration by Victor Gadino/St Martin’s Press)

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