Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Indy 5) is currently showing earnings of $252,511,352 worldwide after 11 days in the box office. It is currently on pace to barely earn back its base production budget which is estimated at being nearly $329 million. If this trend continues this could be the biggest loss for an established IP in Lucasfilm history.
As of June 10, 2023 Indy 5 has earned just over $252 million worldwide ($125,360,587 Domestic and $127,150,765 International). It started off by only earning $60,368,101 on its opening weekend. That is far below expectations and less than half of what its predecessor Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull earned in its 2008 opening weekend ($151.9 Million). That's also less than typically expected for a Fourth of July holiday weekend.
As of July 5th Indy 5 dropped 52.7% and earned only $5.5 million. It continued its decline and on July 10th (the last reported figure) it earned only $3.2 Million. If you follow the trend, based current rate of decline (62.3% from July 9th) Dial of Destiny may be on pace to earn approximately $1 to $1.5 million per day. That number is not going to helped by the premiere of Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One (MIDR) which has strong critic and fan ratings on Rotten Tomatoes (96% critics, 94% fans). The fact that MIDR is expected to earn $250 million globally in its opening weekend also will not help the future box office performance of Indy 5.
If Indy 5 is given the standard 45-day box office run then it has 34 days remaining in theaters. If it is able to average $1.5 million daily for the remainder of its box office run then Dial of Destiny will earn an additional $51 Million Domestic. Since international box office is currently matching United States box office then we may be able to double that $51 Million to $102 Million Worldwide over the next 34 days. Adding that $102 Million to its current earning of $252 Milion we can estimate a $354 Million total earnings for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. That puts it just above its base estimated production budget of $329 Million, and the estimated box office is actually higher than it probably will be. We are calculating with no decrease below $1.5 Million per day for the next 34 days.
Assuming that Indy 5 earned $354 Million totaly worldwide box office at the end of its run, how does that reflect on the overall budget?
Let's look at a basic breakdown of production and marketing costs and apply that to Indy 5:
Production Budget (estimated) - $329,000,000
Publicity & Advertising Budget (reported) - $150,000,000
That offers a subtotal of $479,000,000.
Just those two figures along with our estimated $354 Million box office gives Disney/Lucasfilm a $125 Million dollar loss.
Now factor in the share of ticket revenue that Disney/Lucaslim gets from the theater group:
Most production companies receive only 50% off of each ticket. So a $15.00 ticket gives the studio only $7.50.
Disney gets 60% off of each ticket, unless they are tickets sold in China where they only get 25%.
We are going to use 60% as the overall percentage for the sake of this estimate.
Wanting to make back the full production cost ($329 Million) Disney would have to make $526,400,000 in order to recoup their earnings to balance out production from the theater group.
$526,400,000 + $479,000,000 (above subtotal) = $1.005 Billion.
That is considering the above estimated numbers are correct.
That puts the total cost for Indy 5 at approximately $1.005 Billion and with our estimated total earning of $354 Million Disney/Lucasfilm could stand to lose $651,400,000 on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Of course the actual numbers will present themselves during the rest of the theatrical run.
Here are some indictators on how poorly Indy 5 is performing:
- Insidious: The Red Door earned $68,206,744 on its opening day July 7th.
- Indy 5 earned $23,682.998 on its opening day and only $7,741,455 on July 7th
- Independent Film Sound of Freedom earned $45,668,594 on its opening day July 4th showing in 2850 theaters.
- Indy 5 earned $11,698,989 on July 4th despite playing in 4600 theaters (nearly double Sound of Freedom).
Indiana Jones and Dial of Destiny could end up being the worst performing film from the Indiana Jones saga when adjusted for inflation.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1078 theaters) - $212,222,025 (not including re-releases) ($829,651,658 adjusted for inflation)
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1687 theatrs) - $179,870,271 ($501,602,336 adjusted)
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (2327 theaters) - $197,171,806 ($463,032,605 adjusted)
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (4264 theaters) - $317,101,119 Million (413,821,365 adjusted)
- Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (4600 theaters) - $354 Million estimated.
If the earnings trend continues Indy 5 could be the biggest loss for an established IP in Lucasfilm history ($651 Million) coming in below Solo: A Star Wars Story which lost just over $487 Million.
Some sites have reported that there have been "emergency meetings" at Disney regarding the performance of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, but we have no evidience of that yet. We will try to keep you updated as we learn more.
Now "Get back to work."