Weekend Box Office Results: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Whips Up $60 Million Opening

Weekend Box Office Results: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Whips Up $60 Million OpeningShow more

The box office just had its first billion-dollar month since July of last year. Not even the combined strength of Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World: Dominion was enough to get last June to that total. But now the sixth month has achieved the goal for the first time since 2019, before the pandemic took hold. June 2023 has produced what is likely to be the biggest film of the summer (unless Mission: Impossible does gangbusters) and two of the biggest studio bombs of the year (each giving roughly half of their $100+ million grosses to the theaters.) A film...

The box office just had its first billion-dollar month since July of last year. Not even the combined strength of Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World: Dominion was enough to get last June to that total. But now the sixth month has achieved the goal for the first time since 2019, before the pandemic took hold. June 2023 has produced what is likely to be the biggest film of the summer (unless Mission: Impossible does gangbusters) and two of the biggest studio bombs of the year (each giving roughly half of their $100+ million grosses to the theaters.) A film that will unfortunately join that latter club (with a big tent this summer) is the final Indiana Jones adventure, which will outgross many of the films this summer but not enough to cover the expensive price tag it took to make it. King of the Crop: Indiana Jones Whips Up a $60 Million Opening When Raiders of the Lost Ark came out in 1981, it had the third-biggest opening of the year ($8.3 million) behind Superman II ($14.1 million) and The Cannonball Run ($11.7 million). It ultimately nearly doubled the gross of the Man of Steel and nearly tripled Reynolds and Co. When Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom opened in 1984, its PG rating may have horrified parents, but it had the biggest opening of all-time ($25.3 million), besting the previous year’s Return of the Jedi ($23 million). It was the third highest-grossing film of the year behind Beverly Hills Cop and Ghostbusters, and its opening record held for three years until Beverly Hills Cop II hit $26.3 million in May of 1987. Two years later, that record would fall to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which started with $29.3 million, and that was with it opening on a Wednesday. That record would fall to Ghostbusters II ($29.4 million) three weeks later and then further with Tim Burton’s Batman ($40.4 million) a week later.
By 2008, there had been only nine films to tally $100 million openings, but Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull still managed to join the club and become the tenth film to pull it off. (The Dark Knight would leave them all in the dust later that summer with a $158.4 million start.) Despite Crystal Skull‘s divisive reputation, it was one of only three films to gross over $300 million that year (Iron Man outgrossed it by about $1.3 million), and at 77% on the Tomatometer, was the seventh best-reviewed film of that summer. Despite early pans out of Cannes this year, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny came into this weekend at 67% with critics, $60 million with audiences in North America, another $70 million internationally, and a $295 million bill for the studio. As late June releases go, Dial of Destiny mustered up the fifth-best live-action opening ever. Spielberg’s War of the Worlds opened to $64.8 million in this slot back in 2005, though projections have Dial of Destiny around $80-85 million through the July 4 holiday, which would already put it $15-20 million off the pace of Worlds. That still gives it some hope for a $200+ million finish. The problem is that the film finds itself in similar Fast X territory with that enormous budget, and it appeared doomed from the get-go unless it managed to pull off some kind of Top Gun: Maverick feat. It’s been 15 years since the last film, which has lived on in infamy, and the Cannes reviews helped put a black mark on it. Reviews since then have been mostly kinder, and audiences do seem to be enjoying it more. It received a B+ on Cinemascore (up from Crystal Skull’s B), even though that is still not the A of The Last Crusade.
The numbers will look better for theaters as it quickly becomes the fourth highest-grossing film of the summer, even if it will get knocked back just as quickly by Mission: Impossible and Barbie. However, it’s important to consider for a moment just how man...