Quite a few people saw it coming, but it doesn’t make it any easier for the studio when it actually arrives. Indiana Jones and the DIal Of Destiny opened soft at the box office, with a $60 million domestic three-day debut. It is also shooting low overseas with only around $70 million from 52 international territories. That is a worldwide opening gross of $130 million. To put this in context, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 opened to $118 million domestic alone.
$60 million puts this in The Flash territory, which is being talked about breathlessly as this year’s notorious bomb. The kicker? Indiana Jones cost around $100 million more than The Flash to make. Make no mistake, Lucasfilm and Disney are taking a bath on this one. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull snared $272 million globally on opening weekend… fifteen years ago! Their current reverse Midas touch continues.
Star Wars movies, Star Wars theme parks, a Star Wars hotel, and now Indiana Jones all flushed straight into the crapper in one leadership cycle. That really is a pretty staggering achievement.
The one saving grace for Lucasfilm? The rest of the box office was also suffering. It appears as we said before, that Tom Cruise and Top Gun: Maverick may not have saved cinema, just placed it on life support. This summer is shaping up to be devastating.
The Flash limped to eighth spot in just week three on release with just $5 million, taking a domestic total to $99.2 million. Lucasfilm will be terrified of Indiana Jones following this trajectory. The rumors are that The Flash is about to be unceremoniously yanked from theaters early as it is playing to empty houses. This clears the way to dump it on streaming and try and recoup some money via PVOD.
DreamWorks and Universal’s $70 million animated kids film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is DOA, with only $5.2 million domestically and $7.6 million internationally. If it ain’t the Minions and Gru, it appears nobody wants what they are selling.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse gives one studio some good news, still locked in second place in week five of release, taking a total up to $340 million domestically and $600 million worldwide. Jennifer Lawrence’s R-rated comedy No Hard Feelings came in fourth place at the box office with $7.5 million, taking it to $49 million worldwide so far. That should turn a profit as it had a modest budget. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts grabbed a further $7 million to take its total to $136 million domestically and $381 million worldwide.
The whole industry peers anxiously ahead in the direction of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and whispers “Save us again, Tom Cruise!”
Movies are now just too damned expensive to make. At a $120 million budget level, quite a few of these movies are successes. As budgets hit $250 million+ as a matter of course, the whole thing feels a bit doomed.
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