Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny's Disappointing Box Office Must Serve As A Lesson To Hollywood
One of the biggest movies of the summer arrived over the weekend in the form of "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." Unfortunately for Disney and Lucasfilm, it didn't perform nearly as well as they had hoped. Coming in on the low end of already not-so-great industry projections, the fifth and presumably final film in the legendary franchise earned just $60 million through Sunday at the box office, per The Numbers. Was that enough to top the charts? Easily. But it won't be nearly enough to turn this one into a hit. Far from it, actually.
The primary, highly-publicized issue here is that director James Mangold's new "Indiana Jones" picture comes with a staggering $295 million budget — before marketing. After marketing? Disney is probably in the hole at least $400 million. "Dial of Destiny" also underperformed relative to expectations overseas, with a $70 million international rollout. That means it earned $130 million worldwide on opening weekend. Or, to put it another way, less than half of its disastrously large budget.
For the sake of comparison, 2008's much-maligned "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" opened to $100 million 15 years ago, en route to a huge $790 million global finish. The post-pandemic landscape has made it far more difficult for many blockbuster films to leg out, and it's likely that "Dial of Destiny" will finish with around $400 million worldwide, give or take. Since theaters keep about half of the money from ticket sales, it's easy to see how this is going to be a financial disaster for Disney. Heck, even a finish on par with "Crystal Skull" would be barely passable with a budget that big.
Indiana Jones and the wildly inflated budget
Granted, "Dial of Destiny" had a lot to overcome on its way to the big screen. The movie, like many others over the last couple of years, faced inflated costs due to the pandemic. Be that as it may, there is no excuse for a budget to balloon to just shy of $300 million. Frankly, $200 million is at the very high end of what a big blockbuster should cost in an established franchise. Only the rarest of rare exceptions – such as "Avatar: The Way of Water" or "Avengers: Endgame" — can justify a larger investment upfront. "Indiana Jones 5" never should have been in that category.
To put things into perspective, Steven Spielberg made "Raiders of the Lost Ark" for Paramount Pictures in 1981 on a budget of $20 million, with the film going on to earn a massive $367 million worldwide. Even if we account for inflation, that budget would be around $67 million. If we don't adjust the ticket sales for inflation, in that case, it's still a very favorable rate of return. Disney set itself up for failure here, and even once streaming, Blu-ray, cable rights, and other ancillary revenue streams are factored in, they still could lose well over $100 million on this film — if not significantly more.
Speaking of Paramount Pictures, Disney includes an "in association with Paramount Pictures" credit in "Dial of Destiny." That's because the distribution and marketing agreement Disney made in 2013 means Paramount will be a financial participant on any "Indiana Jones" film. In other words, it appears that Disney has to cut Paramount a check, even though the studio is already poised to lose millions. That makes a bad situation even worse.
A much bigger disaster is brewing
Sadly, this is far from an isolated issue. Other movies in 2023 that have sold a lot of tickets are going to find themselves on the wrong end of the money line at the end of the day. "The Little Mermaid" has earned $526 million worldwide, but its $250 million budget is getting in the way of the film turning a profit. It might barely break even, even if it continues to demonstrate strong legs, which is insane. "Fast X" has made more than $700 million but carries a stupefying $340 million budget that makes turning a profit in theaters all but impossible. Similarly, "Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning — Part One" is set up to be one of the biggest global earners of the year, but also carries a prohibitive $290 million budget.
This is a problem I have been highlighting for a couple of years now, and it has been getting worse, not better. The tragic part for the industry is that these gigantic tentpole franchise films have been propping up both theaters and studios for years. The movie business absolutely needs these films to function. But what happens when these big movies can't make any money because, for whatever reason, the studios can't get the budgets under control? I don't have the answer to that question, but it can't be good.
In short, one can only hope that "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" (if not 2023 overall) serves as a lesson for Hollywood: These big franchise movie budgets must be reined in. Period. If not, things could get bleak in a hurry.