Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny lost big time at the box office

Newly-released financial statements have revealed the full scope of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’s losses, painting a bleak picture for the future of the franchise.

The fifth Indiana Jones movie debuted in cinemas last summer to a mixed response from critics and audiences, and according to Box Office Mojo grossed just $384 million internationally – or less than half the final gross of its predecessor, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That would still be a decent take for many movies, but the Dial of Destiny’s production budget is in a different ballpark.

Disney subsidiary PLT Productions (UK) has just published financial documents for the year ending April 1, 2023, covering the time period in which the studio spent an additional $79 million to de-age Harrison Ford for the Dial of Destiny’s flashback sequences. As Forbes reports, that brings the film’s total production budget to a staggering $387.2 million – meaning that, based on box office returns alone, the latest Indiana Jones movie was a complete bust for Disney.

Studios typically receive half of the ticket sales for movies, so Disney would have raised roughly $192 million at the box office. That only puts a dent in the film’s production budget, resulting in an overall loss of $134 million. Of course, that isn’t the entire picture: it doesn’t factor in marketing costs, which will have put Disney even deeper in the red, but nor does it account for merchandise or home entertainment sales.

Either way, it looks like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was not the success Disney was hoping for – though it had an uphill battle from the start given its eye-watering production costs. In fact, the additional VFX spend shoots the adventure flick up to fourth place in the list of the most expensive films ever made, behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

This all spells bad news for the future of the Indiana Jones franchise. If Disney can’t bank on the fedora-toting, whip-cracking archaeologist as a household name, it seems very unlikely that it will risk investing any more time, energy or – most of all – budget into subsequent projects. While the character’s silver-screen journey is done and dusted, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy tossed around ideas including an animated series and spin-off adventures in an interview with Total Film last summer.

It’s difficult to see any of those coming to fruition now. But this tepid response from audiences to Indiana Jones in the 2020s almost makes the LEGO Group seem prophetic: while the company resurrected its LEGO Indiana Jones line in April 2023, it did so with just three sets, and never followed those up with any products based on the Dial of Destiny. It felt like a baffling choice at the time, but perhaps the powers that be saw the writing on the wall before everyone else.

In short, though: don’t expect any more LEGO Indiana Jones sets. Given the radio silence around the theme since 77012 Fighter Plane Chase, 77013 Escape from the Lost Tomb and 77015 Temple of the Golden Idol dropped a year ago, that probably isn’t the most surprising or dramatic takeaway for anyone paying attention – but a $134 million loss feels like the final nail in the coffin if ever it were needed.

• LEGO Indiana Jones is rumoured to be over… for now
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