'Indiana Jones 5' Tops Box Office Before July 4, Still Underperforms

The last ride of Harrison Ford's iconic hero, Indiana Jones, topped the box office yet again this weekend. However, despite opening No. 1, "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" failed to open with large enough business to become a profitable venture for Lucasfilm and Walt Disney Studios. Per Box Office Mojo, the adventure film raised $60.5 million for its opening weekend.

The film's current worldwide total stands at an estimated $130.5 million after its opening weekend.

The problem with a movie like "The Dial of Destiny" opening with $60.5 million is that it has an incredibly expensive hill to climb. The film garnered negative buzz after its tepid debut to poor reviews at the Cannes Film Festival. Once more reviews started coming in, critics were more or less mildly positive toward the film, and its critic rating currently stands at 69% on Rotten Tomatoes.

However, the major problem with "The Dial of Destiny" is its extremely large budget. Variety reports that the film has a $295 million budget, and that's before prints and advertising, which can also be considerably expensive for a film such as this.

The last "Indiana Jones" film, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" came out 15 years ago in 2008. The film opened considerably higher over Memorial Day Weekend in May 2008, drawing $100 million for the three-day period and about $126 million for the four-day extended holiday weekend. "The Dial of Destiny" is not only more expensive than "Crystal Skull's" $185 million budget, but it opened much lower.

"The Crystal Skull" ended its theatrical run with $317 million domestically and $790 million worldwide. Unless "The Dial of Destiny" can somehow stage a miraculous comeback, it's highly unlikely the film will earn much money for Lucasfilm's parent company Walt Disney Studios.

Elsewhere, Pixar's "Elemental" had a solid drop in its third weekend of release, coming in at No. 2 once again with $12.1 million. That brings the film's domestic total to about $89 million and $187 million worldwide. The film is another box office disappointment for Pixar and Disney, but at least it has managed to draw some decent business in its subsequent weeks. Unfortunately, "Elemental" also faces a problem in that the competitive summer box office scene and its high cost will make its margin to break even incredibly high with a reported budget of $200 million.

One of the more sizable hits of the summer remains Sony's "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse." The film brought in another $12 million in its fifth weekend out to bring its current domestic total to $340 million, with $607 million worldwide. With a budget of about $100 million, considerably less than a lot of the other major tentpoles this summer, "Across the Spider-Verse" will likely become one of the more profitable big releases of 2023.

In fourth place, the recently released Jennifer Lawrence R-rated comedy, "No Hard Feelings," dropped about 47.7 percent in its second weekend with another $7.8 million and $29.6 million for its domestic total. The only other new major release over the weekend was the DreamWorks Animation release, "Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken," which opened incredibly low at No. 6 and only $5.5 million. The film has a reported budget of about $70 million.

"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" will have to contend with the next installment of the highly popular "Insidious" horror film franchise this weekend with "Insidious: The Red Door" releasing on Friday, July 7. The irreverent, R-rated comedy "Joy Ride" also opens on Friday.