Disney’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the fifth installment in the franchise, was at the top of the domestic box office charts opening weekend with earnings of $60 million. But these results are underwhelming considering the movie’s massive $295 million production budget, not including marketing.
While $60 million is a lot of money compared to other recent openings, “Indiana Jones 5” cost a fortune to make. It was a disappointing weekend at the domestic box office overall, with “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” earning just $5.2 million.
DC superhero movie “The Flash” came in number 8 during its third weekend in theaters with $5 million, representing a 67% drop in revenue from the previous two weekends. That film earned just shy of $100 million overall with $99.2 million in total ticket sales so far, per Variety.
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” stars Harrison Ford in what’s believed to be the final installment of the legendary franchise. To compare, this “Indiana Jones” didn’t come close to the results of the last film’s debut, “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” which boasted a $100 million opening weekend in 2008.
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“This is a weak opening,” David A. Gross of the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research said of the opening numbers. “Most action-adventure series finish by episode five and that’s happening here.”
Poor reviews of the film haven’t helped matters. The Rolling Stone review said of “Indiana Jones 5,” “[Y]ou either die an intellectual-property hero trapped in amber, or you live long enough to see yourself riding a fake horse against a green-screened subway background when most of your peers have slowed down.”
“[O]ne can feel the four credited screenwriters grasping at inspiration and coming up short. What they did manage to make would be perfectly fine as a standalone adventure film starring some other character, but it’s not worthy of the whip,” Vanity Fair critic Richard Lawson wrote.
Many moviegoers questioned how realistic it was to have Ford, 80, still playing an action star. The actor famously said no one else should take on the role after he stops playing it. “This is the final film in the series, and this is the last time I’ll play the character,” Ford told Total Film Magazine in April. “I anticipate that it will be the last time that he appears in a film.”
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