Indiana Jones 5: Points of Comparison (Top Gun 2, The Last Jedi, Solo, No Time to Die, Wild Wild West, Cowboys & Aliens)

When those who make predictions about how big franchise movies will do at the box office go by more than their "gut" they certainly think in terms of how past films in the franchise did. However, they also draw analogies with films outside their franchises that had critical similarities of other kinds.

The analogy that the claqueurs have preferred to make for Indiana Jones 5 has been Top Gun 2.

I have been skeptical about that analogy from the start--for many reasons. (Top Gun 2, whatever its virtues or assets as a blockbuster, had the benefit of the media cheer-leading for it with one voice, and a summer with very little competition from other big action movies--and this made a difference to its opening, and its extraordinary legs.) But considering Indiana Jones 5 I have found myself thinking of other movies. Notable among these have been:

* The Last Jedi, an installment in the other principal Lucasfilm franchise that likewise, under the direction of a much-admired but unlikely helmer, "subverted expectations" and destroyed the image of its iconic hero by presenting him aged and seemingly broken, with the task of saving the day falling to a younger woman who had looked to him for help (in a situation whose identity politics far from escaped notice).

* Solo, the next movie produced by the aforementioned franchise, which saw a Harrison Ford character in a very different phase of life (and looking different from) when we last saw him teamed up with another character played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It was also released on a key summer holiday weekend (Memorial rather than Independence Day in this case).

* No Time to Die, the last movie from the franchise that, even beyond being "the granddaddy of them all" when it comes to our high concept action-adventure franchise films, did so much to inspire both of the big Lucasfilm franchises specifically (with, indeed, Indiana Steven Spielberg's way of satisfying his unfulfilled impulse to make a Bond film). It also involved Phoebe Waller-Bridge (writing, not acting) as it presented its own hero at the "end of the road."

I now add to these three previously discussed points of comparison a fourth and fifth--Wild Wild West and Cowboys & Aliens, as both of these movies, the latter of which also starred Harrison Ford (and No Time to Die's Daniel Craig too!), were highly publicized mega-budgeted retro sci-fi July releases (with Wild Wild West, like Indiana Jones 5, hitting theaters on Independence Day weekend).

As it happened, the response to all of these movies was . . . not what was hoped for.

* The Last Jedi was deeply divisive, to the point of being a major moment in the country's culture wars over pop culture, with the fact associated with what, compared to the preceding Episode VII, was a significant commercial underperformance.

* Solo, which seemed to many a victim of the backlash that followed in the wake of The Last Jedi, proved a costly flop of historic proportions that caused Disney to cancel its plans for the franchise (which have yet to be properly replaced).

* No Time To Die was an underperformer at the box office (in the U.S., the weakest since Licence to Kill), which confirmed that the series was indeed catering to an aging fan base unreplenished by younger cohorts (with, indeed, the severity of the blow reflected in the slowness with which any plans for the continuation of the Bond franchise have proceeded, at least so far as is publicly known).

And of course, Wild Wild West and Cowboys & Aliens that confirmed the unsalability of "weird Westerns," steampunk and retro-sci-fi generally to the wider audience expected to come out for big summer films.

Given what is known of the films' content, and now expected of it commercially, it seems reasonable to expect Indiana Jones 5 to follow the same track as all these films in the weeks ahead with respect to both commercial performance and popular reception--though supporters of the movie may hope that history will prove kinder to it than the critics and audience of the summer of 2023.