Harrison Ford at the premiere of the film Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny on June 26, in London.Scott Garfitt/The Associated Press
Indiana Jones, and executives at the Walt Disney Co. and Lucasfilm, made a somewhat dispiriting discovery this weekend. Moviegoers didn’t rush to the theatre in significant numbers to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and say goodbye to Harrison Ford as the iconic archaeologist.
The film, reportedly budgeted north of US$250-million, came in on the lower end of projections with US$60-million in ticket sales from 4,600 North American theatres, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Including US$70-million from international showings in 52 markets, Dial of Destiny celebrated a US$130-million global opening. It easily earned the No. 1 title but was not the high-rolling send-off for one of modern cinema’s most iconic actor/character pairings that anyone hoped. Disney is projecting that it will make US$82-million domestically through the Fourth of July holiday and US$152-million globally.
Dial of Destiny is the long-delayed fifth instalment in the Steven Spielberg/George Lucas-created adventure series that began in 1981, and the first Spielberg himself hasn’t directed. Veteran James Mangold stepped in to take the reins overseeing the Spielberg-approved script, which finds an older Dr. Jones retiring from his university job and swept up on a new adventure with his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge).
“It’s impressive that a franchise that’s over 40 years old is No. 1 at the box office. But there’s no question there were higher hopes for the debut of this movie,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “This is Indiana Jones. This is a summer movie icon.”
The film made its splashy premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, with a fitting celebration of Ford, who has said this was his last time playing the character.
But then it was hit with lukewarm reviews. This was an unexpected and unwelcome hurdle, considering it was coming after the maligned fourth film, 2008′s Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Another contributing snag was that a significant portion of the target audience, older viewers, don’t tend to buy many tickets on opening weekend for big blockbusters. But even Crystal Skull, budgeted at a reported US$185-million, managed to gross over US$790-million.
“Sometimes reviews don’t matter, but the sentiment coming out of Cannes was very powerful,” Dergarabedian said. “It set off a narrative where people were already feeling disappointed and they hadn’t even seen it.”
Second place went to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse with US$11.5-million, bringing its domestic total to around US$340-million. Elemental landed in third place with US$11.3-million.
Aside from Dial of Destiny, the weekend’s other main new opener was the animated Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, which debuted in sixth place with US$5.2-million.
Dial of Destiny’s underwhelming debut comes just a few weeks after both Warner Bros.’ The Flash and Disney/Pixar’s Elemental had lacklustre openings in North America. Elemental, like Indy 5, also premiered at Cannes to middling reception.
And yet, Elemental in its three weeks in theatres has held on much better than The Flash, which plummeted again to US$5-million, bringing its domestic total to US$99.3-million. Disney also saw similarly promising holds with The Little Mermaid, now at over US$280-million domestically and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 which has grossed over US$345-million. After the holiday, Disney will be responsible for nearly half of the summer box office earnings.
“The entire story isn’t told on the opening weekend,” Dergarabedian said.
Disney has a “clear weekend” ahead with no competing blockbusters, when studio heads can reasonably hope for more families and older audiences to buy tickets. But things will only get more challenging for Dial of Destiny in the coming weeks with a crowded July. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I opens on July 12, followed by Oppenheimer and Barbie on July 21.
“The ups and downs at the box office are giving us whiplash,” Dergarabedian said. “And we’re still on the cusp of some of the biggest movies of the summer.”
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theatres, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, US$60-million.
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, US$11.5-million.
3. Elemental, US$11.3-million.
4. No Hard Feelings, US$7.5-million.
5. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, US$7-million.
6. Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken, US$5.2-million.
7. The Little Mermaid, US$5.2-million.
8. The Flash, US$5-million.
9. Asteroid City, US$3.8-million.
10. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, US$1.8-million.