The producers of the new Indiana Jones film have confirmed that the leading lady of the first film in the franchise is returning to the series.

Karen Allen, who played Harrison Ford’s love interest in Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark is to reprise her role as feisty adventurer Marion Ravenwood in the unnamed Indiana Jones IV, due for a May 2008 release.

The news was announced by Lucasfilm/Paramount at Comic-Con International in San Diego.

Now 55, Allen’s Ravenwood was drinking Sherpas under the table at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but by the film’s close was needing to be rescued while wearing a white dress and tied to a pole.

She joins Cate Blanchett, Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone, John Hurt and Shia LaBeouf as confirmed members of the cast.

The plot of the fourth Indiana Jones film, which will like the three that preceded it will be directed by Steven Spielberg, is tightly under wraps, but it is speculated that Blanchett is the movie’s lead villain – complete with Russian accent – while Transformers star LaBeouf is expected to play Indie and Marion’s son.

Brit actors Broadbent, Winstone and Hurt are rumoured to be playing a professor, Indie’s sidekick and Marion’s father respectively