Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: A Box Office Gross Prediction

I previously considered the prospects of the upcoming Indiana Jones film at the box office this summer. In doing so I was more concerned with considering the factors that may work against it, as a film being released in 2023 and as against its predecessors, than attempting to forecast its earnings--but it is to that that I will turn here.

For this purpose I think a good starting point is the performance of the previous Indiana Jones sequels which, adjusted for inflation, tended to run in approximately the $400-$500 million range in North America, with a downward trend evident from the top to the bottom of that range. Measured in 2022 dollars there was a roughly 9 percent drop from the gross of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to that of The Last Crusade, and a 7 percent drop between The Last Crusade and Crystal Skull. Should that continue then we would have reason to expect something around $400 million for Dial of Destiny, while even the film's doing a good deal better (beating out Crystal Skull and Last Crusade to approximate Temple of Doom's performance, for instance) would still leave its gross within the $400-$500 million range of its predecessors. Especially as such grosses have since been routinized to some degree (seven films made something like this amount of money in real terms in that last "normal" year for the box office, 2019), this does not seem at all implausible.* Meanwhile the last two films in the Indiana Jones franchise grossed about 40 percent of their money at home--again, a familiar enough figure,such that it is probable the movie will not do better than that (especially should the talk about a Chinese release not happening be borne out).

The result is that, assuming the film's staying in the accustomed range for the series domestically and internationally, we would be looking at a global gross in the vicinity of $1-1.25 billion (again, the more plausible in that, adjusting for inflation, at least nine movies of 2019 pulling in a billion or more globally). However, there is some reason to think the film will fall short of that range. Overexploitation, prior missteps, waning nostalgia, an aging fan base, an ever-more crowded market could all take their toll on it as they have so many other franchises, like Star Wars--while the particular tone of the film, and its less-than-ebullient buzz, make it that much easier to picture the film underperforming than overperforming. Accordingly it seems not at all implausible that the quarter-billion dollar margin between the $1 billion mark suggested by the above calculation and the series' peak should also extend in the opposite direction--the movie's take falling into the $750 million-$1 billion range (with, at the bottom end, given the 40/60 split seen in the past, this looking like a $300 million domestic gross and $450 million from overseas). Indeed, while I do not expect it, given all that the movie seems to have against it I do not wholly rule out a Solo-like collapse (the movie's making a "mere" half billion dollars or less). But the $750 million-$1.25 billion range seems to me the more probable, if with the low end of the range the more probable than the high ($750 million-$1 billion, rather than $1 billion+).

Of course, for all the number-crunching this may look wrong-headed in just a little while--and if the information available changes then the only reasonable thing to do is to analyze that and take what result we get from that. But for now this is my guess--and I have very little expectation of any dramatic change in the situation in the weeks and months ahead.

* The seven films in question are Joker, Aladdin, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Star Wars Episode IX (The Rise of Skywalker), Captain Marvel, Frozen 2 and Toy Story 4, while the remake of The Lion King and Avengers: Endgame did considerably better (the latter, in 2022 dollars, pulling in almost a billion in North America alone, and tripling that globally).

NOTE: For the author's post-Cannes premiere review of the prospects of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny taking into account the box office tracking data released in early June, click here. For a more recent take prior to the opening weekend, click here.