Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: (Box Office Gross Prediction Reviewed: We May Indeed Be Looking at Another Solo)

Back in April I offered my prediction regarding the box office prospects of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (aka Indiana Jones 5). My conclusion, based on the inflation-adjusted performance of the prior films, and the downward trend evident among those performances, was that a fifth Indiana Jones movie could be expected to pull in about $400 million domestically, while making one-and-a-half times that overseas, for a $1 billion take. I also suggested a 25 percent margin of error here given the distance between this level and what past films had made, providing a margin of plausible, not-unprecedented success should it "overperform," and the effects of the considerable headwinds the film faced, with the film's undershooting rather than overshooting the billion-dollar mark--and a Solo-like collapse not to be wholly ruled out.

In short:

$750-$1.25 billion, with <$1 billion more likely than $1 billion<, and Solo-like collapse (e.g. circa $500 million) not out of the question.

Following the film's unfortunate reception in the wake of its Cannes premiere I saw more reason to expect the pessimistic outcome discussed above, and wondered what Boxoffice Pro would say come June 2 (given its routine of releasing its forecasts four weeks before the release date).

Their opening weekend prediction is $81-$111 million--and the domestic run expected to finish up somewhere between $225 and $380 million.

Even the top end of the range is a bit below my base prediction of a domestic gross of $400 million--while the low end of the range is, rather than a quarter down from it, not much better than half that. The result is that the low end of the range we are talking about is a Solo-like collapse scenario, if not worse. (Solo's $214 million back in May 2018 was equal to $258 million in April 2023 dollars.) Should the film make a global gross of 2.5 times its domestic take the result at the bottom end of the range would be some $560 million (not so much better than Solo's inflation-adjusted $474 million)--while I do not rule out the film's underperformance overseas being worse than its domestic underperformance, such that, again, an even lower and more Solo-like gross cannot be wholly ruled out (the more in as nostalgia for this one may be shakier abroad than here).

So at this point: the prospect of the $1 billion gross seems to be ever receding, while the Solo-like crash, which I earlier treated as unlikely but still worth acknowledging looking more and more like a realistic (if depressing) possibility.