Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny landed at the box office this weekend like Mola Ram into a crocodile-infested river, earning only $60 million at the domestic box office.
The final entry in the Indiana Jones series couldn’t entice long-time fans out to theaters, especially when many reviews stated that the film was passable, but not as good as the maligned Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
When comparing the two films, Crystal Skull earned $100 million in its first weekend 15 years ago, with a tomatometer score of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes and a less-than-stellar B by those polled by Cinemascore.
On the other hand, Dial of Destiny earned a slightly higher B+ CinemaScore, but currently sits ten points lower with 68% on Rotten Tomatoes. While these numbers don’t tell the whole story, the fact that Crystal Skull was an alien invasion-sized disappointment to hardcore Indy fans certainly kept many of those older fans away, not wishing to have their faces melted once again.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny added $70 million at the international box office for a global start of $130 million, which seems paltry when compared to the film’s estimated production budget of $300 million before promotional costs.
With two older audience skewing films arriving soon (Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One arriving on July 12 and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer blowing up on July 21), old Indy may only have one more weekend to amass as much loot as he can, wishing for the glory days that only a Dial of Destiny could make possible (the object, not the film unfortunately).
In more positive box office news for theater owners and the film industry, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’s sales remained strong in second place with $11.6 million. Spider-Verse has generated $340 million at the domestic box office and just crossed the $600 million mark worldwide. With little similar competition for the rest of the summer, it is highly likely that Miles Morales and his Amazing Friends will continue to add to their already lofty totals.
Come back next weekend to see how Indiana Jones fares after his second week at your local cinema.