‘Indiana Jones 5’ tops box office ahead of July 4, still underperforms

The final ride of Harrison Ford’s iconic hero, IndianaJones, topped the box office again this weekend. However, despite opening #1, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate” failed to open with enough business to become a profitable venture for Lucasfilm and Walt Disney Studios. Per Box Office Mojo, the adventure film raised $60.5 million for its opening weekend.

The film’s current worldwide total stands at around $130.5 million after its opening weekend.

‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate’ tops box office with $60.5 million

The problem with a movie like “The Dial of Destiny” opening with $60.5 million is that it has an incredibly expensive hill to climb. The film garnered negative buzz after its lukewarm debut to poor reviews at the Cannes Film Festival. Once new reviews started rolling in, critics were more or less mildly positive towards the film, and its review rating currently stands at 69% on Rotten Tomatoes.

However, the major problem with “The Dial of Destiny” is its extremely large budget. Variety reports that the film has a budget of $295 million, and that’s before prints and advertising, which can also be significantly expensive for a movie like this.

The last “Indiana Jones” film, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was released 15 years ago in 2008. The film opened considerably higher on Memorial Day weekend in May 2008, attracting $100 million for the three-day period and approximately $126 million for the four-day extended holiday weekend. “The Dial of Destiny” not only cost more than “Crystal Skull’s” $185 million budget, but it opened much lower.

“The Crystal Skull” ended its theatrical run with $317 million domestically and $790 million worldwide. Unless “The Dial of Destiny” can somehow engineer a miraculous comeback, it’s highly unlikely the film will make much money for Lucasfilm’s parent company, Walt Disney Studios.

Elsewhere, Pixar’s “Elemental” saw a solid decline in its third weekend of release, once again coming in at No. 2 with $12.1 million. That brings the film’s domestic total to around $89 million and $187 million worldwide. The movie was another box office disappointment for Pixar and Disney, but at least it managed to pull in some decent business over the next few weeks. Unfortunately, “Elemental” also faces a problem in that the competitive summer box office scene and its high cost will make its margin incredibly high with a reported budget of $200 million.

One of the biggest hits of the summer remains Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” The film grossed an additional $12 million in its fifth weekend to bring its current domestic total to $340 million, including $607 million worldwide. With a budget of around $100 million, considerably less than many other big tentpoles this summer, “Across the Spider-Verse” is likely to become one of the highest-grossing big releases of 2023.

In fourth place, Jennifer Lawrence R’s recently released comedy “No Hard Feelings” fell an estimated 47.7% in its second weekend with an additional $7.8 million and $29.6 million for its national total. The only other major new release over the weekend was DreamWorks Animation’s release, “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” which opened shockingly low at No. 6 and just $5.5 million. The film has a reported budget of around $70 million.

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate” will face the next installment in the wildly popular “Insidious” horror movie franchise this weekend with “Insidious: The Red Door” due out Friday, July 7. The irreverent, R-rated comedy “Joy Ride” also opens Friday.