To the surprise of absolutely no one who has seen the abysmal sequel, a new financial filing by Disney has revealed that rather than being anywhere in the neighborhood of what anyone would call ‘a success’, last year’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was but the latest entry in their long list of big-budget box office disasters.
As initially detailed by Forbes, this confirmation of The Dial of Destiny‘s failure to land with audience was revealed courtesy of filings made with the UK government by the local Disney subsidiary set-up to helm the film’s production and help it qualify for the island nation’s movie tax credits, PLT Productions.
(And bear with us, readers, because to get to the results, it’s going to take a brief detour into the world of accounting.)
Per box office tracking outlet Box Office Mojo, as cited by the aforementioned news outlet in their analysis, the fifth film in the Indiana Jones franchise managed to gleam only $383,963,057 world wide.
Factoring in the approximately standard 50-50 split both theaters and studios share regarding ticket sales, this left Disney with a rough take of $192 million when the film’s theatrical run was all said and done.
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Per financial statements filed with the UK government in 2022, the House of Mouse spent roughly $308.2 million (£244.1 million) to produce the film.
Thanks to qualifying for the UK’s aforementioned tax credits, at the time of the 2022 filing – roughly two years after filming on The Dial of Destiny had begun – Disney had already been reimbursed approximately $58.3 million (£46.2 million) by the British government.
However, according to the latest set of financial statements made with the government for 2023, Disney spent an additional $28,000 on post-production work to de-age Harrison Ford for the film’s opening montage.
Combined with a further $2.7 million (£2.1 million) tax credit, this brought The Dial of Destiny‘s total costs to $326.2 million (£258.3 million).
When one factors in Disney’s $192 million box office share, the numbers ultimately reveal that the universally-panned sequel lost the studio at least $134.2 million (£106.1 million).
And it is important to note that qualifier of ‘at least’, as these numbers do not take into account the film’s marketing costs.
In light of the standard ‘true film budget’ formula of ‘at least double a film’s reported production budget’, one can presume that The Dial of Destiny cost somewhere in the ballpark of $652.4 million.
Should even this conservative estimate hold true, that would mean Disney lost closer to $460.4 million (£364.6 million) on their attempt to capitalize on the once-beloved adventure franchise.
As noted above, Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny is but the latest of Disney’s recent films to be confirmed as a box office flop.
From Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, to Elemental, to Haunted Mansion, to The Marvels, to Wish, recent years have seen Disney put out so many bombs that their once-stellar reputation as the ‘standard of entertainment’ has now been replaced with one as ‘the shining example of activism-over-entertainment and corporate greed’.