Spielberg Says 'Temple of Doom' Is the Worst Indiana Jones. Huh?

Steven Spielberg reportedly says that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the worst movie in the beloved franchise, which is really weird, because that would seem to imply that Spielberg has never seen Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a movie that he directed.

The news comes via the Associated Press, which spoke to documentarian Susan Lacy ahead of the premiere of her exhaustive HBO documentary on the famed director. The AP’s report says that Temple of Doom, the second Indiana Jones flick that was so dark it helped create the need for a PG-13 rating, was Speilberg’s least favorite. Reading through the lines, this means that Crystal Skull, the widely panned 2008 revival that features Harrison Ford phoning it in and surviving a nuclear explosion by hiding in a refrigerator, is not his least favorite movie in the series.

To be fair to Spielberg, maybe he meant that he hated making the movie. Both Speilberg and his buddy George Lucas, who wrote the story, had just gone through breakups that helped contribute to the movie’s darker tone compared to Raiders of the Lost Ark. But, by that same logic, Speilberg met his eventual wife, Kate Capshaw, who played Willie Scott, on the set of Temple of Doom. So, like, that seems like something that would be good in retrospect?

Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and his opinion can carry plenty of weight. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not a very good movie, though.