It has been a movie-making quest every bit as difficult as locating the lost Ark or the mythical Holy Grail.

But after a tortuous 19-year journey full of false dawns and rejected screenplays, Indiana Jones is back for a fourth adventure.

The swash-buckling, fedora-wearing, bullwhip-cracking archaeologist returns in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which premieres at Cannes this Sunday.

The film reunites three of Hollywood's heaviest hitters director Steven Spielberg, Star Wars creator George Lucas and leading man Harrison Ford for what is comfortably the most eagerly-anticipated blockbuster of the year.

The reunion has been a long time coming: No fewer than eight different writers were reported to have attempted draft screenplays that would meet with the approval of all three principals.

Most famously, Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) delivered a script which Ford and Spielberg loved, but Lucas rejected, before David Koepp (Jurassic Park) eventually provided the finished article.

"Every once in a while, a script would show up but for one or another of us, it wouldn't be exactly what we hoped for," Ford told Empire magazine in a recent interview. "It took us all a long time to get on the same page."

The origins of Indiana Jones can be traced to a beach in Hawaii in 1977, where, while on holiday, Lucas told Spielberg of his idea for an adventure film that paid homage to the rip-roaring serials of the 1930s and 1940s.

The result was Raiders of the Lost Ark, which spawned two money-spinning sequels and countless pale imitations.

Originally, Lucas and Spielberg had envisaged a three-film series, concluding with 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which featured Sean Connery as Jones' father.

But Indy fans simply refused to let their hero fade away, says Spielberg.

"In 1989, I thought the curtain was lowering on the series, which is why I had all the characters literally ride off into the sunset at the end," Spielberg told the New York Times.

"But ever since then, the most common question I get asked all over the world is 'When are you going to make another Indiana Jones?'"

That would be early last year, when it was confirmed that Spielberg, Lucas and Ford were joining forces again.

Plot details have been kept under wraps, although it is known that it will take place during the Cold War, with an older Jones attempting to track down an ancient skull with mystical powers from an Amazonian temple.

One of the perceived stumbling blocks was Ford's relatively advanced years: He was well into his 60s when filming began.

Yet Ford, who continues to film as many of his own stunts as possible, said that shooting on the new epic was straightforward.

"I think there's some good fun to be had with his age and doing the things he does at the age he might be, would be, could be," Ford told the Los Angeles Times. "For me, it actually wasn't so hard. I was in better shape probably than I have been in the others."

For the film crew, the appearance of Ford on set in his trademark leather jacket and fedora was awe-inspiring, according to Lucas.

As Spielberg put it: "Harrison became Indiana Jones in a millisecond. He came on set, he donned the hat and everything came with it ... he brought all this back to life as if no time had elapsed since the third movie."

Some of Ford's co-stars which include Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf and Ray Winstone were equally bedazzled.

"On the first day of shooting, it was extremely surreal," Blanchett told reporters last year. "I was watching the monitor as Steven set up the frame and I knew the iconography of the frame. It was instantly recognisable to me and then I had to step into it." — AFP

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens in Singapore on May 22. - TODAY/ar