There’s a scene in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny where Indy’s old friend Sallah sees him off at the airport, and just as Indy is about to leave for a new adventure, Sallah clenches his fist and tells him to “give ‘em hell.” The rousing moment is cut short by a blaring car horn, as Indy is revealed to be blocking the street. A similar feeling of deflation can be felt at the box office this weekend, as Dial of Destiny, which had been touted as star Harrison Ford’s last hurrah as the iconic character, opened to disappointingly low numbers both domestically and internationally. Falling short of its projected $140 million global debut, Dial of Destiny could manage to whip up only $130 million worldwide this weekend. The superhero movie The Flash actually made around $10 million more in its worldwide debut some weeks ago, and we all know how that panned out. Around $60 million of Dial of Destiny’s debut haul comes from domestic theaters, but this figure could actually be lower when the final numbers for the weekend come in tomorrow. The fifth film in the legendary film franchise was produced on an astronomical reported budget of between $250 million and $330 million, making it one of the most expensive movies of all time. What this also means is that Dial of Destiny must pull off some kind of miracle if it wants to turn a profit. The rule of thumb is that a movie this size needs to gross twice its production budget to break even, which would peg Dial of Destiny’s break-even point at around $600 million worldwide. But a comeback isn’t out of the question just yet. Older-skewing franchises like James Bond and Mission: Impossible usually open low, but often have enough juice to sustain them for weeks. No Time to Die and Mission: Impossible — Fallout both ended up grossing nearly $800 million worldwide despite delivering domestic debuts in the $60 million range. Even the recent Fast X has been able to race past the $700 million mark worldwide after grossing only $67 million in its domestic opening weekend. But the common link between each of these franchises is that they’re just as popular internationally as they are stateside. And this might not necessarily be the case with the Indiana Jones series. Disney certainly bet big on Dial of Destiny, premiering it at this year’s Cannes Film Festival to massive fanfare. But the move backfired when the film attracted negative reviews. Reactions stateside have been slightly kinder, though.
The Indy Movies Have All Been Blockbusters The film’s B+ CinemaScore from opening day audiences, however, isn’t a promising sign. By comparison, the widely derided fourth film — Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — earned a B CinemaScore, and actually had a healthier Rotten Tomatoes rating than Dial of Destiny. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull defied mediocre audience sentiment to generate over $300 million domestically and more than $700 million worldwide, proving that people were still interested in going on new adventures with Indy. It’s difficult to do an apples-to-apples comparison for a franchise that is spread out over four decades, but for what it’s worth, the first film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, grossed $367 million worldwide in 1981. The controversial Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom made $333 million worldwide in 1984, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade grossed $474 million worldwide in 1989. Each of the first four movies was directed by Steven Spielberg, based on a story co-written by George Lucas.
Dial of Destiny is directed by James Mangold and also stars Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Ethann Isidore, and Mads Mikkelsen. You can watch our interview with Mangold here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
Meta Data: {“keywords”:”Indiana Jones, Dial of Destiny, box office”}
Source link