Due to the failure of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny to perform well at the box office, Harrison Ford has now been met with dissatisfaction towards the conclusion of each of his three main character arcs. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the story concluded with Indy riding off into the sunset, and in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the story concluded with Indy being married to Marion and settling down. Both of these endings are considered to be conclusive. Nevertheless, a fifth film in the Indiana Jones franchise has been released, and like the previous ones, it will aim to give the character a touching send-off. The conclusion of the movie set in 2023 is light years ahead of that of the fourquel, but the franchise doesn’t seem to care much anymore.
It has been reported that Indiana Jones 5 has made over $310 million around the world as of this writing, and it is quite unlikely that it will make much more money before movie is taken out of cinemas. Despite the fact that this number sounds outstanding, it is a significant letdown when compared to the box office success of the other movies in the series. Due to the fact that the film had such an exorbitant budget, with some rumors saying that it cost up to $400 million (via Indie Wire), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will not even come close to breaking even in terms of its financial performance. Unfortunately, this is a story that has been told before, since the last farewells of Harrison Ford’s other legendary characters either failed not bring in the audience that was predicted, were a critical failure, or both. In this case, both of these things happened.
The world premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny took place at the Cannes Film Festival a full month before the film was actually released. The early screening of the movie was done with the expectation that it would be well received, which would in turn help generate excitement in the weeks leading up to the film’s official release. According to Screen Rant, this tactic was extremely successful for the 2022 film Top Gun: Maverick, which resulted in a total box office gross of $1.49 billion. On the other hand, Indiana Jones 5 was met with hostility when it was screened at Cannes, which resulted in the film having a “rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes for an entire month before it was ever released in theaters, which wasn’t exactly encouraging.
Even though the film was finally made available to the public and its score on Rotten Tomatoes improved to “fresh,” Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has not been met with particularly positive reviews. In addition, the movie was up against significant competition at the box office. Because 2023 is such a packed year for movies, particularly during the summer, it has led not only in the failure of Indiana Jones 5, but also in a ton of underperformances, with Fast X and The Little Mermaid being just two examples among many more. The next week saw the release of Insidious: The Red Door, and the week after that saw the release of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1. These two films caused the Indiana Jones movie to struggle at the box office.