Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg from a script by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, based on a story by George Lucas. It is the second installment in the Indiana Jones film series, and a prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film features Harrison Ford who reprises his role as the title character. Kate Capshaw, Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth, Philip Stone and Ke Huy Quan, in his film debut, star in supporting roles. In the film, after arriving in British India, Indiana Jones is asked by desperate villagers to find a mystical stone and rescue their children from a Thuggee cult practicing child slavery, black magic, and ritual human sacrifice in honor of the goddess Kali.
Not wishing to feature the Nazis as the villains again, executive producer and story writer George Lucas decided to regard this film as a prequel. Three plot devices were rejected before Lucas wrote a film treatment that resembled the final storyline. As Lawrence Kasdan, Lucas's collaborator on Raiders of the Lost Ark, turned down the offer to write the script, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who had previously worked with Lucas on American Graffiti (1973), were hired as his replacements.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released on May 23, 1984, to financial success, grossing $333.1 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 1984. Initial critical reviews were mixed, criticism was aimed at its strong violence, as well as some of its darker story elements. However, critical opinion has improved since 1984, citing the film's intensity and imagination. In response to some of the more violent sequences in the film, and with similar complaints about the Spielberg-produced Gremlins (which released two weeks later), Spielberg suggested that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) alter its rating system, which it did within two months of the film's release, creating a new PG-13 rating.[4][a] It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. A sequel, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, followed in 1989.
