Talk about whipping up a frenzy!

On Thursday, the first official teaser trailer for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" will debut on "Good Morning America" between 8 and 9 a.m. - well before the hotly anticipated action flick opens on May 22.

Steven Spielberg is again directing, and George Lucas producing, the sure-to-be blockbuster followup to their "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984) and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989).

After "GMA," the footage will be available at the film's official site (www.IndianaJones.com), as well as at Yahoo! Movies, and in theaters.

Since filming began on June 18, details about the swashbuckling archeologist's fourth adventure have been as hard to find as an ancient relic hidden in a wooden crate.

But some digging reveals that the story takes place in 1957 as Indy (Harrison Ford) races to discover the power held by the spooky quartz skulls mentioned in the title.

Oscar nominee Cate Blanchett ("Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "I'm Not There") co-stars as a Russian villainess; returning from "Raiders" is Karen Allen as Indy's one-time love Marion Ravenwood. Shia LaBeouf ("Transformers") plays a tag-along kid who may or may not be Indy's son.

"The phone rang one day last year, and it was Steven saying, 'I guess you know why I'm calling ...' And I didn't!" says Allen, who laughingly says she can't mention anything about the plot - not even whether she and Ford rekindle their on-screen romance.

"He said, 'Don't you watch TV? It's been announced! We're doing 'Indy 4!'"

But Allen, 56, does hint that Marion - who was famously introduced in "Raiders" in the midst of drinking a hefty thug under the table, and is, in fact, the first person ever to punch Indiana Jones on-screen - will be involved in some of the "rock 'em, sock 'em" action scenes.

"Harrison, and Indy, have aged like a fine wine," Allen says. "When we were in Hawaii, where we shot during the first few weeks, I watched him do these scenes fighting large groups of guys, and it was incredible how easily it all came back to him. He had the whip and the hat, and it all felt right."

Allen may not be allowed to mention the plot, but the script clearly involves one or several of the 13 quartz skulls, believed to be between 5,000 and 35,000 years old, famously found in Mexico, Brazil, France, Mongolia and Tibet in the first half of the 20th century.

Internet rumors have been rampant about other possible plot points. Last October, over 2,000 production stills, as well as a budget breakdown and other materials, were stolen from a set location. But none of it has confirmed any of the buzz - does the plot involve Area 51? Is there something in the Ark from the original film used in this film? Is Indy's dad, Dr. Henry Jones - played by Sean Connery in the third film - dead? Is LaBeouf's character, Mutt Williams, really a Jones?

After several false starts over the last 15 years, Spielberg and Lucas called on screenwriter David Koepp ("Jurassic Park," "Spider-Man") to create this new adventure.

"The central premise was always a Crystal Skull as an important object for the quest," says Koepp. "And Indy's age, and the time period, was decided on ... [to allow] Harrison to play his real age and move the series into 1957, 19 years from 'Last Crusade.'

"The thing about Indy that's so great is when he gets punched, it hurts. And aging only helps, because it'll hurt more."

That sense of reality, Koepp says, was crucial to the movie. Even the computer effects were reportedly kept to a minimum; old-fashioned stunt work was of paramount importance for Spielberg.

"To me, the most important thing was to not make it a self-referential fan riff," says Koepp. "We didn't want to make dialogue references to something a character would have said 25 years ago. We wanted to make a movie that stood on its own, even if nobody's ever seen the other ones."

That's hardly the case, given Indy's place in pop-cultural history. And for Koepp, even writing the movie was a tough job, since the first movie was what made him want to be a screenwriter when he was 18.

So is there something Koepp wrote in the script that he's always wanted to see in an Indiana Jones movie?

"Yep. And it's in there. But I can't say what it is."

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
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