‘Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny’ Box Office Projections Described As “Abysmal,” Film Could Lose Upwards Of $250 Million

John F. Trent |

Jun 28, 2023

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm's INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

The opening weekend at the box office is not looking good for Lucasfilm’s upcoming film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, as projections for the film continue to fall with one analyst claiming it could lose upwards of $250 million.

At the beginning of June, box office tracking website Box Office Pro predicted the film would have a domestic opening weekend between $81 million and $111 million. They predicted the film’s entire domestic theatrical run would gross between $225 million and $380 million.

The outlet claimed this estimate was due to the film was receiving positive social media chatter, the film’s nostalgia factor, families going to see it, and “early pre-sales [were] respectable.”

However, they noted that the film also had quite a bit of competition from Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and Oppenheimer.

The outlet quickly started lowering its predictions for the film just a week later. On June 8th, their opening weekend estimates declined 17% to between $76 million and $105 million. The total domestic run declined to $211 million to $359 million.

Another week later and the predictions declined again. This time the opening weekend estimates declined 10.5% to between $68 million and $102 million. The total domestic run declined to between $211 million and $325 million.

It still did not stop there. It dropped even further on June 22nd. The opening weekend estimates now range between $68 million and $95 million. However, the total domestic run stayed pat at between $211 million and $325 million.

And those estimates might still be high as tracking numbers from The Hollywood Reporter at the beginning of June predicted the film would only have an opening weekend between $60 million and $70 million.

Deadline recently shared their tracking numbers and it lines up more with The Hollywood Reporter’s estimates, but on the high end it’s even lower. The outlet claims the film is tracking for an opening weekend between $60 million and $65 million. It notes the film could have a global opening of $140 million.

The outlet also noted that they believe presales for the film were under $6 million as of Friday last week and noted that was below John Wick: Chapter 4 and Fast X.

Box office analyst OMB Reviews noted how dour these most recent predictions describing them as “abysmal” and declared the film “dead on arrival.”

While looking at previous Indiana Jones and their box office hauls he specifically narrowed in on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’s opening weekend box office of $145.7 million back in 2008.

OMB Reviews said, “What is [Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny] expected to make? $60 to $65 million. When you especially remember that the average ticket price in 2008 versus what it is today indicates how many more tickets [Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull] made versus what Dial of Destiny is projected to make domestically you can kind of already see that this movie is in a big amount of trouble.”

Later in the video, OMB Reviews pointed out the film’s massive production budget at $295 million. He said, “The fact that Indiana Jones cost around $295 million and that’s just being reported, it very well could have been higher. They very well could be hiding certain things, the marketing budget is also not necessarily clear. But based off the typical break even point 2.5x the budget the film would need to make $737 million to break even.”

He continued, “Using a little bit more of, I guess, a modern ‘break even’ because some people have it as set as 3x the budget, it could also need to make upwards of $885 million just in order to break even.”

(L-R): Doctor Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen, standing), Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

“Now, here’s the big problem,” he explained. “Remember, the film is set to open to $140 million. … At $140 million opening weekend … knowing historically the vast majority of movies on average make about a third of their entire box office globally in their opening weekend. If that indeed holds for this movie guess what you would end up seeing? … That would be roughly $400 million around $420 to $450 if you are going to be exact.”

“So that is right now what we can say is the early estimate of what the film is expected to make worldwide between $400 and $450 million. If the number comes in lower … then, obviously, the overall total estimate will come in lower too. If it comes in higher, well, that would become higher as well,” he elaborated.

He then noted, “That is a far cry from the $737 to $885 million that it would need to break even.”

After doing some calculations, if the film does indeed get to $400 million in worldwide box office grosses the film would suffer between $200 and $260 million.

He then shared if the film does $500 million at the box office it could lose between $142 to $201 million loss.

OMB Reviews then declared, “This movie is set to be a pretty massive flop and if these numbers indeed end up actually holding you will actually notice that that will then bring the overall total … the total loss of all movies in 2023 from Disney to over $900 million. And the best case scenario would be $888 million.”