The Box Office Prospects of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Worse Than Solo?

Boxoffice Pro has again downgraded its projection for the opening weekend gross of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Already reduced from $81-$111 million two weeks ago to $76-$105 million last week, to their estimate of the range between the worst and best case scenarios now stands at $68-$102 million.

In other words, the best that can be hoped for now seems to be about $100 million (a tepid gross indeed for a onetime Star Wars-like king of the blockbusters, or indeed any would-be blockbuster honored with an Independence Day weekend release date)--while an opening of under $70 million is within the realm of possibility.

Boxoffice Pro has likewise downgraded its expectations for the film's gross over its longer run--the ceiling last week, already down from $380 million at $359 million last week, reduced by a rough tenth to $325 million.

Of course, the floor remains unchanged (still the $225 million it was last week)--but I notice Boxoffice Pro's adjustments of that part of the projection tend to lag the others, while the common pattern for blockbusters makes it easy to imagine lower figures. Front-loaded blockbusters often make something like 40 percent of their money on opening weekend (such that Guardians of the Galaxy 3's being on track to triple its opening weekend gross is accounted a case of "good legs").

Should the movie take in $68 million a 40 percent take would give it a mere $170 million at the North American box office. Should the movie suffer an Ant-Man 3-like collapse it will have taken in 50 percent of its money that opening weekend, which would work out to a bit under $140 million. The result is that given these numbers it is far from impossible that the movie will gross under $200 million, or even $150 million--even before we consider the possibility that the opening weekend numbers will continue in their southward direction for another two weeks. (Were we, to, for instance, assume that after the floor fell 16 percent these past two weeks--from $81 to $68 million--it falls by another 16 percent between now and opening day, we could be looking at an opening weekend in the vicinity of $57 million, in which case the film would need better-than-average legs just to get to the $150 million mark.)

Back in April, making my calculations on the basis of the performance of prior Indiana Jones films, with some allowance for the headwinds the movie faces, I felt myself "sticking my neck out" speaking of the possibility of a Solo-like collapse. Now a Solo-like collapse--which a gross of $250 million (what Solo made in inflation-adjusted terms) would constitute--actually seems a relatively favorable outcome for the movie as the signs all point to Indiana Jones 5 performing worse than Solo this summer.