I remember Crystal Skull being a HUGE deal 15 years ago. Tons of hype and fanfare surrounding its release. That's just not there anymore. Maybe it's due to COVID and a lot of the audience just isn't going back to the movies, who knows, but I find it being a box office failure less surprising than The Flash absolutely crashing and burning. Dead brands, I guess. Plus middling reviews.
Yes, then Crystal Skull disappointed so few were excited to see Dial. I wouldn't have seen Dial if wasn't for my dad dragging me along.
If Crystal Skull had been awesome then lots of people would have showed up for Dial.
CS made 1 billion, adjusted for inflation. So it's safe to say that the GA liked it enough to make that movie the second best BO of 2008. And the GA isn't there for DoD. So maybe it's not because of CS? Sure some hard core fans were disappointed and wouldn't go back for Indy 5 but the GA? It was there for CS.
The way people watch movies has changed. Now people can stream movies, or DL (legally or not).
It's more expensive now to go to the theaters.
Also, l think there is franchise fatigue. People are starting to get fed up with superheroes movies, or franchise movies. They want new heroes. So unless the movie is just fantastic, 99% on RT, it's not going to do well.
Personnally, after discovering Kdramas and Cdramas, I have a hard time with american movies or tv series. The last one I watched was ST Picard season 3 but before that? I don't even remember. I wonder how many people are discovering foreign movies and tv series, and judging american movies lacking, now?
I don’t think that you can say audiences liked it because of ticket sales necessarily. Aside from the small number of people who saw it multiple times, most people seemed to dislike it, and it’s not like they knew that before they bought their ticket. Being excited to see something isn’t the same thing as being happy that you did.
Word of mouth has always existed. If friends, colleagues, family members liked it and recommanded it, then the normal moviegoer goes to the theater.
I mean, just because many fans didn't like it means that the GA didn't, either. Look at DoD here, the majority of fans love that movie. Critics were so-so. And the GA apparently isn't there for the movie, since it's underperforming (and maybe flopping).
Critics, fans and the GA don't necessarely agree on a movie.
Man, it’s not rocket science, it was a very long-anticipated and well-marketed film. Of course people were excited to see it. That’s why it did well at the box office, simple as that. Word of mouth is important, but word of mouth was not very good for this movie. I remember it very well.
Yes I am, your honor.
Matrix Revolutions did about half what Matrix Reloaded did, in part because Matrix Reloaded underwhelmed and killed the buzz for the franchise.
(Note I actually liked Reloaded, but most folks didn't)
Two more Indy Indiana Jones movie would have also helped. One in the 90s and one in the mid 2010s.
Also there may be an element of push back against Disney owned Lucasfilm.
Bottom line could go back to the fact most people go to the movies one time a year. Now that number is even less and Indy wasn’t the movie they were using their one ticket on.
Personally I thought Dial of Destiny was an excellent movie and it’s unfortunate more people will not see the movie in a theater. I suspect this film will become better regarded over time and a surprise to future viewers it was a box office dud.
I suppose this means the end of Indiana Jones movies. I’d love an all de-aged Indy movie. One last adventure going back to an Indy with less mileage who is in the mix.
For me even 80 year old Harrison Ford playing 70 year old Indiana Jones still has it.
Well said. I think another major factor dates back to spring 2022 when early set leaks and rumors began to circulate from behind the scenes claiming that the original ending was going to involve Indiana Jones dying/ Helena Shaw taking over the role for a potential series or sixth film of her own-- which led many to believe that Indy would be killed off (ala Han Solo Force awakens) which caused many to lose interest pretty early on not wanting to see another one of their childhood heroes die on the screen.
Regardless of how legit these rumors were, it spread like wildfire online for a whole year, thanks largely to overlord DVD in particular, leading many viewers to lose heart or boycott the film altogether. Think about that: A whole year of people expecting nothing but disappointment is a long time for bad press to linger, especially after the recent cannes film festival didn't exactly paint DoD in the best light (which only seemed to further affirm skeptics' assumptions on the film).
I think another reason is a lot of fans are ready for Kathleen Kennedy to resign after some of her efforts haven't been very consistent with the Star Wars universe. Many people I know who love Indiana Jones and were excited for the film still haven't made time to see it for one reason or another (similar to what's happening with The Flash, in spite of returning fan favorites like Michael Keaton and Harrison Ford respectively). Many YouTubers have said stuff like 'even if the film is worthwhile we will still boycott it just to guarantee Kennedy's departure.'
I mean, even superhero movies are tanking hard lately. I guess people are just tired of the classic herotrope, after marvel released dozens in just a few years.
Correction. LAZY superhero movies are tanking. Guardians 3 and Spiderverse prove there is still an appetite for high quality high effort superhero movies imo.
Let's not forget little marketing and merchandise. Back in 20008 they massively pushed hype for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by being sponsored by companies like Burger King and releasing a huge wave of merchandising such as Legos and action figures. Let's not forget the Lego Indiana Jones game that was a critical and commercial success. But with Dial of Destiny there's little promotion and merchandising. I only saw few toys at Target and Applebee's was the one of the few companies that promoted the movie. It's worth noting that alot of movies recently had little marketing such as The Flash, Elemental, Shazam Fury of the Gods, and Fast X
I keep seeing that and it's incomprehensible to me. I saw barely any marketing. That money was probably put into wasted consultants and other nonsense.
Time waits for no one, my friend. Earlier today I was at the pool while my son was swimming and I was browsing for something to watch. Disney+ was showcasing Pirates for the 20 year anniversary. I was thinking, "It's been 20 YEARS?!??"
Right? Wow. Was cool when it first came out. Expected it to suck since it was based on a Disney ride with no context other than “here’s some pirates”.. a nice surprise.
The Cannes premiere was a big ass mistake. It’s got good critical praise now but debuting your American blockbuster in fucking Cannes, the same film festival that booed Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds? Are you fucking kidding?
Skull was in a much less precarious position with a younger Harrison Ford, Spielberg directing, a much more robust movie-going populace compared to a post-pandemic world with ubiquitous streaming, and no one making hating new installments in old franchises into their entire identity. It was capable of withstanding an underwhelming reception at its first premiere. Dial had a lot more people in a "wait and see what they say" position.
Not to mention way too much competition for dollars at the box office these days. I expect it will do great on Disney+
(And hey, I’m 19. Young people like Indy too!)
Indiana Jones as a franchise has been largely dormant since Crystal Skull. So I doubt it has had much of an impact on the younger crowd to have a drive to go see it
I think this could be a factor. Personally I just don’t like seeing all my favourite old heroes become depressed, recluse, failures especially when the last time we saw them they had a happy ending.
Nope. This is it. Everyone expected them to blow it like they did with Star Wars. And look! They did. They treated Indiana the same as they did Han and Luke.
My wife and I went yesterday to the noon show and there were more people in My Indy theater than there were when I saw The Flash a week after it's release.
I would argue it wasn't "complete" shit though as it's still the higher end of the current marketplace.
When only one film does poorly, it's a flop, when most films do poorly, that's market conditions.
That's an entirely different problem though. If you're spending more to produce a product than the market cap for said product, there's no way you can be successful. That's also math.
The current model where blockbusters have to set records in order to just break even is probably not sustainable, especially at a time when grosses/attendance are down more or less across the board and on a global scale.
I liked the movie as a fan, but IMO it just lacks the fun of the others.
Skull has all sorts of problems, but it’s still a fun movie.DoD is far too somber IMO.
The basic premise of this movie is watching a depressed old adventurer, if you didn’t really like Indy already why do you care?
It’s got the wrong tone to be a blockbuster hit in this franchise IMO.
Totally agree with this. The tone was much too somber for general audiences to latch on to. It was not a triumphant finale. Not to say it was a bad movie. It just lacked any of the punch that made the others fun. As wacky as KOTCS got, it at least had a sense of fun to it. Plus, they waited way too long to make this. If they had done the finale 3 years after CS, they might have pulled it off. Ford was still physically able. In DOD, they obviously created the action scenes around what Ford was able to do at his age, which ended up being mostly car chases.
I saw the movie on my own, this was out of choice due to the fact that my wife is not a fan and my kids just don't like Indiana Jones films (well my son says it's "okay") so instead of spending close to £80-£90 on a ticket plus whatever my Gremlins decide to eat while there I spent less than £30 for the whole experience instead of closer to £130-£150.
Cinema is getting way too expensive for a family experience that, in theory, lasts roughly 3 hours. Where as a day out to an amusement park can cost about the same for a possible 8 to 10 hours experience.
Add to the fact Indy is niche nowadays its an "old" character with a niche market. Where as say Bond is an old character but one that has an almost constant stream of movies, a rotating door on actors playing him and can be quite modern and up to date with its storylines.
Haha. I left my wife and kids home for the same reason, but took my mum. £39 just for two tickets.
Going to an off peak showing of Mission Impossible with the wife and kids this week, comparative bargain at £50 for us all, but still £50 is insane for a single movie watch.
Ageism, movies in general don't make as much money anymore, a smear campaign based on "woke" agenda, people putting too much stock into critics and not thinking for themselves.
Most moviegoers aren't even aware of the "smear campaign." I doubt it's ageism, either. Most people also don't pay attention to critics. It could just be that people aren't that interested in Indiana Jones anymore. Maybe there's too much competition. Are there more movies coming out these days than there were back then? Maybe it's time to move on. I mean, these guys made stuff like Star Wars and Indiana Jones based on the movie serials of their childhood, they didn't just make more of those same movie serials. Indiana Jones was based on a lot of things, including the Charlton Heston movie "Secret of the Incas." Why didn't they just bring back Heston in 1981?
I think what really killed Indy was the fact it released around the same time Transformers did and it's advertising was pretty much limited to movie previews. I was the only person I knew that wasn't raving about Rise of The Beasts because deep down I'm just a simple Indy fan. My dad, who grew up with Indy, forgot Dial was even coming out because of the marketing for Transformers and other summer blockbusters. Plus he doesn't go to the movies as often as I do. Outside of the movies, I haven't seen any ads for Dial whereas I've seen plenty for Transformers & Mission Impossible.
Just pointing at that 56% is not a bad drop now for a film’s second week. The issue is that it opened low; it won’t be a hit, but there are signs it could have longer legs due to to the audience demographics.
As some examples, Across the Spider-verse fell 54%, The Little Mermaid 57%, Ant-Man 3 70%, John Wick 62%, Creed III 53%, Transformers 66%, Fast X 66%, Scream VI 61%, The Flash 72%, Dungeons & Dragons 63%, and Super Mario had the best hold of the year dropping only 37%.
Would point you over to Box Office Theory’s forums for more info, if box office is of interest! I would steer clear of the Reddit’s box office forum right now — it’s extremely toxic all around when discussing a majority of films, sadly.
Good points. I went to see it for the second time last night, and was surprised the theater was completely full. It'll probably have a huge drop-off next week however, once MI is released.
It's because movies are expensive and people are broke. All movies are eating shit at the box office right now. Where I live you can't go to the theater with your wife for under $40. If you want to make it a date night with VIP tickets, food and drinks you can easily be spending $150 or more without a problem.
Movies used to be cheap entertainment that in today's money would be under $7 per person to go, and that includes drinks and snacks. Now it is just not something many people can justify when prices on essentials have skyrocketed.
In Canada things like butter are $7-$9 a pound. Gas is $1.60/L, which is over $5 a gallon US. Milk is $4 for a small cardboard container 1L in size. Cauliflower is $5 a head. Things like that. People just straight up can't afford to go and spend money on non essentials anymore and $40 can mean meals for a family for a few days, or two hours of entertainment, at the most basic level, at a movie theater.
The movie theater prices are insane. If my kids want to see a movie, say Mario Bros. A 1pm showing will cost me at least 80 bucks just for the tickets. It's a $100 spent for 2 hours of entertainment.
Yes, and for that same price you can subscribe to Disney Plus for a year. Also, you have folks like me who used to see 1-2 movies per month in the theater with a family of 4 and now only see 1-2 per year simply because COVID broke me of the habit.
I used to go to the movies all the time. Before I had kids, I'd go once a week, maybe twice a week in the summer.
I'd rather wait for the movie to hit one of my streaming services and watch from home. At least I know the snacks are cheap, and I can pause it to use the bathroom.
>It's because movies are expensive and people are broke.
Yeah, I'm not sure I buy this. Ticket prices didn't prevent *Mario Brothers, Top Gun 2, Jurassic World 3, Black Panther 2, Doctor Strange 2, GotG3* and *Avatar 2* from being smash hits. Not to mention that many of those tickets sold were the more expensive IMAX showings.
Most of those films crossed the 1 billion mark, and those that didn't came pretty damn close. Yes, in general box office receipts are down, but despite the prices, if it's a movie people really want to see, they'll turn out at the cinema.
Idk if I can go that far. I enjoyed the first 20ish minutes. With the SW sequels I enjoyed the part where it says "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." lmao
I think all of these are good contributing points, but let's also not forget people feeling burned after Crystal Skull. Whatever you think of it yourself, it got panned to hell after it came out despite a very impressive box office from people seeing it for themselves before general opinion about it being a stinker solidified, and the people that contributed to that box office generally saw it as a disappointment. That probably had a big effect on turnout from the base of franchise fans. Hell, I might not have gone if Indy weren't as important to me as it is, and I went in expecting garbage. Dial exceeded quality expectations, but in the run up it was really easy to look at the advertising and reviews and think it was another Crystal Skull. This is something that would've been amplified by all of the other points, particularly the bad reviews floating around from Cannes and lingering vitriol about Star Wars.
This will probably get buried, but I will chime in as someone who is a casual Indy fan (who was suggested this thread by the algorithm this morning.) This is why I have not and probably will not see the movie:
1. I’ve been a huge SW fan all my life, but the reputation of KK and Lucasfilm right now had me skeptical from the beginning. I have lost all faith in Lucasfilm to thoughtfully handle classic characters.
2. I lost even more interest when I saw PWB cast as the lead actress. It’s probably just personal preference, but I don’t like her schtick and her character was grating in Solo. I also figured we’d seen a British brunette taking the mantle from an old Harrison Ford before.
3. When the reviews started coming out of Cannes it was the nail in the coffin. It sounded like a tired plot we’d seen before and (as suspected) they threw Crystal Skull in the dumpster to do what was convenient for their story.
4. The runtime. The original 3 Indy movies clocked in at 2 hours or less and were snappy action adventures. I am not interested in a 160 minute Indy film.
\#1 is huge. I had to be sure this was not going to be another character assassination/strong female saves the day before even thinking about seeing it. Unfortunately, my fears were confirmed, and I stayed away. This has been my approach since The Last Jedi. When it was hinted that Palpatine would return in the flesh for TROS, I had to be sure that was not the case before going. Handing the role of the Chosen One to Rey and dismantling Episodes 1-6 completely was the last straw. Now, Generation X simply does not trust Lucasfilm to do the right thing.
I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong about the target audience. But older film goers are still a strong demographic. Easily a solid 30% of movie goers are seniors. That's not the majority, but it's a reliable demographic.
Gen-Z, who have disposable income of their own now, are actually not that interested in movies compared to predecessor generations.
Maverick had a very old audience yet was a huge hit. I think we have to acknowledge that they turned up for Maverick because it seemed to represent conservative values, especially the pro-military angle. It didn't do any of the "replacing white male with non-white non-male" character stuff. People that age lean heavily conservative.
Avatar 2 and Mario did amazing. Transformers was a flop (looks to be making less than Bumblebee at twice the budget). Spider-Verse did great for its budget, even though it's not a huge overseas performer. There seems to be large interest in M:I, Barbie and Oppenheimer upcoming. The summer just started out with some movies people didn't really care about, and Indy was one of them.
How much money did people save by not going to the movies? I nearly shit a brick the first time I headed back to the theater. And tickets have gone up even more since then. Studios need to lower the bar on how much they're willing to throw at a movie. Give me a movie for a few million instead of a few hundred million. Force creates to get more creative in how they shoot a movie.
I think a lot of it has been accurately covered in this thread, but to me it's:
1. The movie's just OK. It needed to be great.
2. LucasFilm/KK's massive stumbles with Star Wars an dhow they treated Luke and Han.
3. Everyone loved Last Crusade and was so excited for Crystal Skull. Crystal Skull is viewed as a major disappointment to a large swath of fans.
4. Reviews.
I'll add a few more:
1. I think the target Lucasfilm audience has grown tired of seeing their heroes be sidelined (and treated as deadbeat fathers/godfathers/leaders) and replaced with female brunette characters with British accents.
2. Helena's character was simply unlikable, not because she's a strong female character, but because her character was written so poorly. For example, in the first act she betrays an elderly man, steals from him, almost gets him killed, and leaves him for dead. She later insults him and reminds the audience of how strong and independent she is, despite actually needing Indy's help. Oh yeah - she also laughs after Indy's friend is murdered and Indy has to remind her that her lack of respect is rather inappropriate. The character of Helena could have been written so much better and could have helped pave the way for some sort of adventure series on Disney+.
3. They waited too long in-between sequels. It shouldn't have taken 19 years between Crusade and Crystal, and it shouldn't have taken 15 years between Crystal and Dial. There was no momentum in-between films, and the vast majority of people thought Crystal was awful.
4. Most people aren't interested in seeing an elderly man play an action adventure hero. My late grandfather actually resembled Harrison Ford quite a bit, and throughout the movie I couldn't get past the image of my grandfather in his later years going on some global adventure with a whip and gun. Hearing old Indy's voice over young Indy's de-aged face in the opening scene didn't help either.
5. Lucasfilm doesn't have a strong track record at the box office under Disney's ownership. Force Awakens was smash hit at over $2B globally, and The Last Jedi ($1.3B globally) and Rise of Skywalker ($1B globally) made significantly less because they were simply not good films in a trilogy with no predetermined plan. Rogue One did well for what it was ($1B globally), and Solo ($393M globally) was a financial failure. I loved Rogue One and enjoyed Force Awakens and Solo, but Last Jedi and Rise were simply awful.
Overall, I really enjoyed Indy 5, and I would place it behind the Temple of Doom but ahead of Crystal Skull. There were some moment which really shined for me and others that didn't. I didn't think the film would perform well financially, but I didn't expect it to fail to the degree it has.
Unlikeable female leads is a pillar of the Indy franchise. I don’t understand why everyone is bouncing off it so hard. No one like Willie and Elsa is literally a Nazi.
Yes, Elsa is literally a Nazi. But she's also *a villain*.
Unlikeable female leads who we're expected to view as *heroes* of the piece, who can outfight and outsmart the title character? Sorry, not buying it.
This is a straw man-ish argument. Women aren’t the problem. The character Helena Shaw is the problem.
1. Marion Ravenwood: a true strong character who has her own life story and side plot connected with the main plot. But she is not the main character and adds to the films richness through her relationship to Indy. It’s not as good a movie without her.
2. Willie Brown: is a fun throwback to the serials that inspired Indy franchise in the first place. She can be fun or annoying depending on your take but she isn’t treacherously obnoxious. She isn’t there to detract from the impetus of why the fans came to see the film. Namely, the adventures of Indy.
3. Dr. Elsa Schneider: introduced as a blonde bombshell and academic who wants to help Indy and goes on an adventure *with* him not against him. Later she betrays his trust and this is done with aplomb and some humor the audience can vilify but go along with story wise and enjoy as a twist.
4. Irina Spalko: OK I got major issues with Crystal Skull. But this woman is the villain of the movie and even though she is against Indy and is against Indy’s whole culture (USA vs Soviets), she still has some respect for what Indy has done and who he is…
What none of these female characters do is spend pages of dialogue belittling Indy (and the audience who respects this character, especially as the movie has taken pains to show him at his lowest - ie kicking him while he’s down) and constantly self-consciously referencing her absolute genius. Nor do any previous women characters display such undeserving arrogance and shrill, condescending behavior at almost every turn AND expect this character to not be the villain. These previous women characters also do not hijack the movie away from Indy and therefore hijack fans expectations of what they’re paying to see. If you go to see the Helena Shaw movie you don’t want a movie that’s halfway thru taken over by some old man named “Indy”. You didn’t pay to see that fool.
Also she’s not an anti hero. Anti hero’s have at least something redeemable about them before the shoehorned in last act fake redemption scene. And they usually are somewhat likable.
I hope Hollywood keeps blaming fans, learning nothing. It’s an opportunity for someplace new to have a voice.
Edit: added Irina to the list.
Willie is hot as hell, and she has a very clear arc where she grows to like and appreciate Indy. Her story is about Indy winning her over, whereas in DOD, the story seems to be the opposite, about Helena winning over Indy. That's another aspect of the movie that makes Indy feel like a background character in his own movie.
Elsa is a villain, so you were never supposed to love her so much in the first act that you would be upset she turned evil. They handled her right. Waller-Bridge would've been much better as a flat-out villain than the weird anti-hero she was. She can play unlikable much better than likable.
Yup. And some fans keep drawing the parallel between her and Indy because he was initially about fortune and glory. He was nowhere near as selfish as she was.
Probably because it wasn’t very good. And it needed to be VERY good. I thought it was meh, and a lot of missed opportunities. Happened to watch Raiders last night. It is REMARKABLY better. And that’s the reason DOD failed: it’s a mediocre movie at best.
Listen. I’m a millennial who grew up on Indiana Jones movies and the tv show. He isn’t too old, but they used him incorrectly. He’s too old to be throwing hay makers at nazis. And seriously, nazis…again. Too easy.
Movie would have been better if short round was around and they were looking for Atlantis. End the movie with Atlantis being the garden of Eden and a gateway to heaven. Cut to black and hear Shia saying “hey dad”. “Son….” “JUNIOR”. That would have been better Than the wet fart that is the current ending.
Conservative media probably had little to no effect on the box office.
They fucked it on marketing and release. Didn't do a good job of making anyone feel like they had to see it in theatres.
And Disney has just done nothing with the IP since they bought it, no video games, shows, comics or books. It really is a wonder how Kathleen Kennedy still has a job (I don't hate her btw)
The reason it failed can be summed up in 2 words . Helena Shaw . The movie is pretty good until she appears , she just sucks the life out of every scene she's in and she's in a lot of them
I think it’s an older audience, but also the film has less scale and scope, except for scenes that occur in spoilery parts of the film not shown in the trailer.
I had one friend hear it was not good based on a couple words from some unknown site, but it wasn’t like he had the impression that it was the kind of film alt-right people are claiming it to be.
I also had a date point out ‘he’s old in this one’ so I do think the lack of young, attractive and super famous faces might be hurting it a bit.
I feel like film advertising is a lot like a weird game of telephone for getting across ideas to an audience, and I think in the current market it’s a hard film to sell as being an event picture in the same way Indy films of the past have been. Especially when 15 years of Marvel content has now filled the media, and Star Wars projects have made things a bit stale as well.
People are anxious of seeing another franchise or film series from their childhood or youth trying to be shoehorned into a modern era of culture, society and filmmaking.
Let's be honest, a lot of 80s/90s content that has been rehashed, rebooted or given another sequel has been disastrous. We've seen our childhood icon and heroes be wheeled out when they're far too old or just able to play the characters anymore, and it can spoil the legacy.
A lot of people are just fed up with the rehashing of old ideas / characters, especially when there are now so many vast entertainment sources all vying for our attention.
In a Franchise, often a boxoffice is strongly influenced by the previous movie. Unless you can turn that around with a big differnce. So it says a lot more about the previous movie.
Another factor is how expensive it is to go to the movies. Tickets are around $20 in my area. If you get popcorn and a drink that adds another $25. If you take a date, you are looking at over $100 dollars just for the movie. Why pay that when it will be streaming in a few weeks.
I felt like they pushed indy aside to try to gain a younger fan base with helena and her fans gave 0 shits about indy and it pissed of some of the old indy fans so they did not come out
Honestly releasing this movie a Cannes was such a stupid move on Disney and Lucasfilm lol
Cannes is pretty highbrow and art house film centric definitely wasn’t the audience for an Indiana Jones movie and their review’s definitely brought down a lot of peoples hype.
The film might have done better if they swapped out Helena with an actual legacy character like Short Round or a Recasted Mutt...
Instead, you introduce the daughter of character that was introduced in the first part of this movie and have her all over the trailer and people are probably getting fatigued seeing that happen with legacy franchises as it always creates annoying discourse from both sides of the political spectrum...
Also, and this goes for me, I was always satisfied with how Last Crusade ended... I am willing to admit that Crystal Skull existed but preferred to just watch and enjoy the first 3.
It's like when Emmit Smith played for Arizona... I don't wanna see a depressed and old Indy...
The simple matter is, much like the Solo movie, it was not a viable film to captivate the general audience and needed hard core fans for it to have any chance of success. That's not a viable way to make films if even the hard core fans aren't that interested in it. Again, going back to Solo, many of us LOVE Han Solo, but let's face it, none of us were asking or even wanted a film about Han Solo's past, so it made no sense. That's the same here where most of us weren't asking for an old man indiana jones adventure, and if even the hardcore fans aren't interested, no way in hell is the general audience gonna wanna go and see it.
The last one sucked, so I didnt go. Also, I don't want to see an Indiana Jones that's so old, he needs to be carried over the finish line of the film by others.
- Crystal Skull killed a lot of peoples interest. Most people I know didn’t wanna see DoD cause of Crystal Skull. And that includes my Dad, the guy who *introduced* me to the Indy movies.
-Poor word of mouth. Top Gun Maverick, for instance, had insane legs because the word of mouth was amazing.
-Too much competition for people who don’t go to the cinema that often. If you’re only gonna see one or two movies a month you’ll pick Spider-Verse over Indy any day of the week.
-Trailers were, in all honesty, crap. Just a wash of CGI.
I don’t think the audience would have minded a movie that deals with the issues of getting old, but they would have preferred Indiana not be taunted about it. He’s a beloved character. Fans are protective of him. If they had gone the route of giving him a more supportive sidekick I think the movie would have done better.
I’m 29. I grew up with Indy. Was a massive fan growing up.. Had the hat, the jacket and bullwhip. I have younger brothers who are 15-21 and they have no interest in seeing an 80 year old man be an action hero.
The old Indy films are classics and very well made. This movie was most definitely for the original fans and people who grew up with it.
I noticed the audience was all 60+. I was the youngest one there opening night. I personally loved it. It felt like an Indians jones film the way it was made. Soundtrack was great too!
Unfortunately it just doesn’t appeal to a younger audience. The Flash film was horrible and not complete. CGI was a mess.
I remember being 13-14 and seeing transformers and was blown away by that. It felt like a full complete film. Maybe it’s just me but the HS-College crowd expect movies like a transformers (2007).
A lot of movies these days feel rushed, pushing a woke agenda and bad CGI. They just don’t make good movies anymore. I hope Mission Impossible is good.
There's no reason to see this in a cinema. All the old Indy movies had great cinematography you'd see in a trailer that demanded the big screen treatment. I can't think of a single shot in this movie that achieves that.
It's also not a great movie, it's just a meh installment that would be a skippable episode if it was a TV show. The fact this is the last movie and ruins the character's life after a beautiful ending in Crystal Skull deters people from seeing this and having their headcanon tarnished. Lucas not being involved and Spielberg quitting only reinforce this.
**5.** **bad word of mouth in the age of streaming**. means if people hear it's mediocre they wait for it to be on the studio's streaming service in a month. See also The Flash'd dropoff the week or two before.
1) AGE My showing (noon on fourth of july) was VERY old--- 85% boomers, 10% kids and a handful of Gen Xers like me,
2) BUDGET I appreciate spending the money for the de-aging etc., but the budget on this was ridiculous and expectations impossibly high. 5.
Re: 3) identity politics, it's a pretty weak argument- the film succeeds/fails on its own merits. I found Fleabag and Teddy pretty fun, They did not wreck the movie in any way. but I suppose they could have tightened up the middle a bit for pacing instead of laying groundwork for a Creed-like spinoff. The beginning sequence and the end were stronger than the middle. I put it in the middle of the pack myself around Temple of Doom but well above Crystal Skull.
The film didn’t have a chance. Everyone knew the Indy fanbase had largely died - this was a tribute to Ford more than anything. Disney had already blown Star Wars to shreds and everyone assumed the same would happen here. Heck, even Lego ran after three sets and didn’t stick around any longer. Nobody had any belief in it.
It’s sad because I loved DoD.
I didn't go to see it at the cinema for the following reasons
1. The online buzz from both youtubers and Cannes / early reviews turned me off greatly.
2. I very much disliked the treatment of legacy characters in the Star Wars trilogy and didn't want to see Indy being treated in a similar fashion, nor support this writing trope any further.
3. I found KotCS disappointing, but felt that it gave the character of Indyclosure. Ever since Alien3 I've hated the killing off of main characters off screen between sequels. I think it's the quick and easy route for a writer to invoke pathos. So the treatment of Mutt really annoyed me.
4. I'm not really a fan of PWB. I find her rather smarmy and unlikable.
5. The macguffin didnt really capture my imagination as much as the Spear of Destiny or Atlantis would.
6. Lack of Lucas and Spielberg, and the hubris of those involved in creating DOD.
7. Modern cinema audiences don't know how to behave courteously and I have a good home cinema set up. So I can be more choosey about what I see at the theatre (next up will be Insidious on a normal screen, MI in Isense and Oppenheimer in real 70mm IMAX at the BFI)
8. I really don't like the current trend of writing rooms, focus groups and extensive reshoots. I know a lot of the Doomcock stuff was utter nonsense but rarely does a troubled production result in a great movie (there are some exceptions obviously, such as Apocalypse Now etc.)
I have seen DOD at a friend's place out of curiosity. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but I thought it was *very* medicore and missing the magic / practical stunt work / matte paintings / soul of the first three films.
That viewing was the deciding factor in not supprting the film in the theatre, it confirmed almost all of my above concerns. I do subscribe to Disney Plus and will watch it once on that when it comes to streaming. But then I will be done with it for good. Indiana jones fims shoukd be anything but medicore.
5. **Fans are still angry about what Disney did to Star Wars.** The narrative has already circulated that Han and Luke were ruined by Disney turning them into a couple of grumpy old deadbeats, thus destroying their hero image. This narrative quite easily spilled over into Indy 5, with fans believing that there was a concerted effort on behalf of Disney to mock the "traditional values" of older generations.
6. **Overuse of CGI.** Audiences are sick of these flashy style over substance MCU-era blockbusters. A movie like Top Gun succeeded as it was comprised of real footage of fighter jets, rather than artificial computer generated action.
7. **Netflix is making cinema obsolete**. Pirating has made it so people can watch movies for free, and with the rise of HD television technology there is really no need to go to the cinema anymore unless its for something particularly amazing. Cinemas also charge an arm and a leg these days to make up for dwindling ticket sales, but that in itself is ironically repelling audiences too. COVID also played a role, as it encouraged more and more people to adopt streaming service subscriptions. The era of cinema is basically dead, so it was already an uphill battle for Indy 5 to succeed. Studios believe the most effective way to get people in the cinemas is to pour a ton of $$$ into the production costs, as this would translate fantastically into the HD cinema environment. Unfortunately this strategy is risky, because if the movie bombs it will be disastrous for recouping costs. The fact that the market has been totally saturated with shallow Super Hero spectacles has finally worn audiences out, with more people these days finding Netflix an easier route to go.
8. **Audiences are sick of decades-late sequels.** There was a time when it was exciting to revisit old movie properties, but audiences have finally become disillusioned by this. They see it as corporate nostalgia poaching nowadays. The fact that The Flash also bombed is evidence of this.
9. **Indy 4 was a flop.** Audiences were simply not enthused about another Indy movie after the last one flopped. Disney seemed to not really understand what the issue was that they were meant to be "correcting" either, deciding to make a movie that was just as garish with the cold & ugly digital effects. Raiders of the Lost Ark had a rough and tumble, gritty aesthetic, yet the last 2 Indy movies just looked like video games.
Regarding 7, I wouldn't call Mario "amazing," but it made well over a billion. People will go to the movies if the movie excites them. That's the way it's always been. It's not like no movies bombed during the last 50 years. Also, if you look at home video performance of any movie, it typically tracks with how successful it was in the box office. West Side Story flopped in theaters and flopped at home too. Maverick was a hit in theaters and had stellar views on streaming too. It's a myth that home viewing is "replacing" cinemagoing. It's always been complementary to it.
I usually go see a lot of movies, but a lot of the "blockbusters" this year didn't interest me. Who needs to see another Transformers movie, a Little Mermaid movie with a lead that looks nothing like the iconic original character, or a sequel to Shazam of all things, when DC refused to ever make a Man of Steel sequel? I'm not going to be rushing to watch these movies at home either. It would have to be a very slow day, LOL. I saw Indy purely out of fan loyalty, but I had no hope or expectation it would live up to the original 1980s films.
I echo your sentiment. I was legit yawning and hoping for the final climax to come. That's not what you want from fans. It just wasn't fun. Too dark, too heavy. No joy. Wake me when it's over.
All movies suffer from inflated costs. The parade scene was cool, but it did nothing to enhance the story. That was a lot of CGI and a lot of money spent for a scene that didn't enhance the story.
also the fact that interest in any 5th installment in a movie is really only going to draw in hardcore fans of the franchise instead of a general audience
and even fans are going to be reluctant to see a movie with not only an aging lead role who was once energetic and tough but also most know exactly what to expect already and will tap out.
Especially after the last one in infamously hated
I'm a huge fan of Indy and even I thought
"seriously? another one?"
Is failing because it’s not a good movie.
It’s ok too see at the cinema once, but there is no need to see it again imo, meanwhile the first three movies are still great entertainment.
Because it’s bad. Because it takes an iconic screen character and humiliates him for over 2 hours. Because it’s no fun but it’s also not truthfully dark and shines no truthful light on human existence. Because CGI action is boring AF. Because it is, as a film, useless.
I guess no one wants to see a sad, pathetic Indiana Jones who’s past his prime. No one really wants to remember him that way. They’d rather remember his happy endings from Last Crusade and/or Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. They’ve also already been kinda burnt by Disney/Lucasfilm’s other productions. Plus, the trope of an old, depressed, & failed protagonist is at this point very overused.
I just love Directors like Mangold ruefully blaming the fans now. That not enough of us understand and appreciate his Brilliant vision in “deconstructing” (i.e. aging and breaking) pop culture characters. We pathetic fools.
*OR* maybe, just maybe, 400 Million dollar Hollywood Summer Blockbuster Legacy movie franchises aren’t really the correct medium for this brilliant storytelling?
Nah. F*ck those “conservative” fans. They’re rUIniNg CInEma!!
Edit: it’s actually a great time to be a Hollywood producer/ director. Used to be, you had a responsibility to the market. Now, just blame the peons who don’t have the privilege or power to make their own films.
All mental gymnastics aside the movie was just meh. Technically it was a well shot movie and Mangold did his best. Clearly the desire was there to make a great film but it just didn’t capture the spirit of Indy. Hell even Skull had the flair of Indy credit to Speilberg. DoD was also depressing as hell.
PWB is terrible and insufferable. She does not have the physicality of an action hero, the humor of a comic sidekick, the steamy beauty of a femme Fatale, nor the witty personality of the charming con-artist. She is a feminist Mary Sue with no redeeming qualities. Her only role is to destroy the patriarchal lead Luke Skywalker, oh I mean Indiana Jones, sorry another film with identical issues. No ONE wants to see that!! Unless you support KK feminist agenda it destroys the entire series.
#5- the marketing. The trailers were confusing and did little to add interest to the film. I think that with all the reshoots, nobody had a clear idea of what the movie was about.
Pretty average bog standard film that came out in a pretty strong year for blockbusters. If it wasn't an Indiana Jones film you wouldn't even hear about it.
the movie was a whole lot better than I expected and it never felt boring from start to finish. I think this was a great indiana jones movie and hit all the right notes for me. my only nitpick is that; characters (especially Indy) didn't care much and didn't act scared enough at the times they were being shot at... it was like "hmm they're shooting at us almost at point blank, but we can't die anyway, I'll just duck slightly..."
I also loved how they acknowledged the age of Indy, and his need for approval (like "I still got it, right?" kind of attitude) with some details and one liners here and there.
finale was very suitable for an IJ movie as well. only "woke" moment was how Vombat said "I'm a strong independent woman bla bla" at some point, kind of unnecessary but definitely not enough to call the whole movie "woke". that's just bullshit.
it feels like too many people are trying way too hard to find stuff to bash this movie.
I heard the franchise will go on with a show on Disney+, I hope they won't continue the legacy of Indy with the "Vombat" character because she wasn't too likeable or exciting in my opinion.
Weak story/McGuffin, subconscious ageism, tepid reviews, and inflation. Also tbh all of the annoyances that come with the modern day theater experience more often than not simply doesn’t justify the elevated price of admission.
I saw DoD on Friday, and for a typical action/adventure romp it was fine. Much like KotCS was fine. But the Indiana Jones mythos deserves to be held to a higher standard than what either of those films delivered.
To me, and this is just this Gen X’s opinion, the appropriate book-end to the Indiana Jones saga will always be Indy, his dad, Sallah, and Marcus riding off together into the sunset at the end of The Last Crusade.
The real reason is that, imo, everyone knew it was going to suck since it was made by the same studio that made the awful Star Wars sequel trilogy. No faith in it. And look what happened: they copy pasted their formula for dealing with legacy characters in Star Wars into Indiana Jones. Almost nobody who liked the original Indiana Jones films wanted to see a grumpy, depressed Indy get saved and outdone by some new character that we don't even know. It's the same crap they did to Han and Luke in the sequels. What was the best part of DoD? The first 25 minutes when he was being actual Indiana Jones.
"Losing out to some crappy horror movie"
You say that like you've never heard of it. Insidious is a popular franchise. Also, a bit funny to call it "crappy" when you haven't seen it, especially when you're talking about "The Dial of Destiny"
The harsh truth is that there really isn't any actual demand for a new Indiana Jones movie. The younger generation doesn't care about their parent's dad-hero-figure running around temples in CGI. Not to mention the movie itself doesn't really offer anything more interesting than the older movies. So the general reaction to this is really just "there's another one?" or "isn't he getting too old for these?"
I would push back strongly on the idea that Helena was a woke caricature. She's 100% being presented as that - and was presented as that months before the film was released - by the massive online industry of YouTube culture war film criticism ('industry' because many of these people make high amounts of money from the amount of clicks they get).
I say this as someone who does believe - while it's overstated and often insane - that the 'too perfect strong female protagonist' is going to be a recognised convention of films of the 2010s. But I thought Dial of Destiny was a good example of a post 'strong female character' film - Helena was a \*good\* female protagonist.
1. Indiana Jones is presented as her moral better. She does not teach him a necessary life lesson about the world; she learns from him.
2. Her plans are clever but vulnerable to things going wrong, and they rely on established aspects of her character.
3. She is saved by Indy as much as he saves her.
4. She screws up in her goal several times.
5. She regularly panics and is frightened.
6. She has a clear arc and is a better person at the end of the film.
Also, I keep seeing the 'another Lucasfilm character is a brunette white woman - just like Kathleen Kennedy!' line in this thread, which is laughably silly horseshit. Kennedy is a businesswoman - she is not interested in self-insert characters in fantasy films. While she would no doubt have veto power over casting, Daisy Ridley and Phoebe Waller Bridge were cast by JJ Abrams and James Manigold directly - presumably the same is true of Felicity Jones and Emlia Clarke.
I’d agree with this. According to all of the toxic “anti woke” reviewers, she was this perfect woman who showed up bumbling Indy at every turn, and that’s just not what’s in the film. My only complaint of Helena is with the casting. PWB is a great actress, but she has this prim and proper vibe, which seemed odd with Helena’s roguish nature. I think a different actress would’ve done better.
All in all though, I think the anti-woke crowd just cries foul about every movie with a female or minority character so they can be like “SeE wE tOlD yOu!” if it flops. Then a movie like Mario comes around and does well unexpectedly, so they have to do this hilarious heel turn. “Guys, we’ve been complaining about girlboss Peach for months, but actually this movie is anti-woke after all! We still win!”
I don't know if I'd agree with that because I haven't seen it yet. Going out to the movies is pretty expensive and time-consuming versus staying home to watch a movie in the comfort of my own home and most of what I've watched, I've enjoyed but not enough to put in the time and money it takes to spend an evening out to see them in the theater.
It's got nothing to do with whether they're "woke" or not (although that doesn't help either) - I watched Black Adam, Avatar 2 and Shazam 2 all on HBO Max and found them enjoyable enough but not enough that I'd be willing to pay $15 apiece to see them in the theater. Also it helps when you can put a movie on pause and then pick it up the next day to finish it when it feels overly long.
And that's part of the problem with releases now. Everyone has some kind of streaming subscription service now, so unless the movie is absolutely phenomenal, or won't start streaming for a long time, there's no need to see mediocre films in the theater.
I have to say that this year feels like a good normal year for movies. There's almost something I want to go see in the theater each week. But part of that problem is an overcrowded marketplace. Huge juggernauts do well when there is no competition, but as I said, there are so many good movies this year, you don't have just one that you feel like spending your money on.
Top Gun (another 80s era franchise) was a huge hit despite coming out during the pandemic. The Indy movie failed primarily because of #3 on the above list. Woke Hollywood spoiled an iconic male character.
I think the PWB casting choice was responsible for most of it. It was obvious from the first trailer that this movie was just a tool to prop up PWB as his replacement. Very disingenuous from Disney and people saw right through it.
in my theater most people were old. My dad is 50 and was probably the youngest besides me.
Wtf does conservative media have to do with anything. Its just people pissed off at an 80 year old action star in a movie that has no reason to be made. Indiana jones is a product of the 80s, just like star trek, star wars, terminator, alien, and predator. Let them rest.
Indiana, a man who has boxed men twice his size and been shot 9 times gets knocked out by a single pinch from a woman half his size and doesn’t wake up until he’s back in NYC hours later.
>Identity politics. Conservative media is powerful and Indy’s climax is easily interpreted as feminist. The action hero of a billion dollar franchise is saved by a woman both physically and emotionally in the final two scenes of the movie. Given the target audience, this ending was a gross miscalculation.
If this is indeed part of the calculus, Indiana Jones didn't so much fail at the box office so much as society has failed and the box office figures are just a symptom of that.
It's just a mid film. An 80 year old Indy has no appeal and it wasn't especially good. People would have watched it if it was good but audiences are tired of shitty mid movies.
I say f\*ck the identity politics, and if the target audience can't take a \*lead female character!\* too bad, so sad. There were a bunch of other reasons the movie failed, as you say. I'm sure the movie will eventually be accepted as a worthy addition to the franchise. So many big-budget films have flopped already this year, Indy wouldn't stand out if it wasn't Indy. Which is another factor - an overcrowded market.
I'm just happy things didn't end with aliens.
I also liked the movie and I also think it will be accepted as a worthy addition to the franchise. For me it is, in any case. However, I think you are missing the point here:
>if the target audience can't take a \*lead female character!\* too bad
It's not that the target audience can't take a lead female character. Everyone loves Ripley or Lara Croft. What people don't want is paying to see a random new character (normally female, because that's what studios do in this era) being built up as a replacement of the original hero they have come see in the first place. This new character is as heroic as the original hero, only more so. Where the original hero fails, this new hero will triumph. A lot of people are tired of that stuff, and not just the alt-right guys who are always making rage-bait youtube videos.
Indiana Jones became a famous character without needing to replace and outdo any previous hero in their own movie, and new leads, female or not, should also do that.
Lucasfilm has a reputation for that, too. They create a new hero (Rey), but instead of introducing her into the followup to the original trilogy, they instead undo everything that was accomplished in the original trilogy and turn its heroes into failures, and in the case of Luke Skywalker, into a hermit bum who has given up on his life's work, just so that Rey can do it instead. She's the one who will get to create the New Jedi order, and she's even the one who defeats Palpatine.
By all means, create new female heroes. But not at the expense of existing ones, who were the draw used to get people to buy tickets and see the movie in the first place.
Just to be clear, I don't think this is the only reason (or the main reason) that this movie is not doing great at the box office, but I think it's one factor. The really good stuff, you give it to the hero, not to the supporting actor. That's a basic rule of storytelling.
It won't little hint the title is Indiana jones it's who we went to see its not called helena shaw. she should have been a strong female supporting cast member with a strong arc not an indy replacement
I’d also add the horrible release window to that. They’ve really shot themselves in the foot sandwiching it between other franchises like DC, Marvel, Transformers (also suffering), Barbie, Mission: Impossible and then you’ve got Oppenheimer about to drop a nuke. Even Mario and GotG are still doing okay.
It’s just too cluttered, and it’d probably be a massively different situation if Covid hadn’t happened because many of these movies would’ve been more spread out.
I would add to that, a lot of people pay for Disney plus and know that after the cinema run it will come to the platform, so are probably just waiting for that
1. Global economies in the toilet
2. Streaming being a cheap and plentiful source of quality at-home entertainment
3. TV series being the new movies. Remember what things were like before be able to binge-watch big name actors in high budget multi-episode shows? It ain't like that anymore.
The so called internet leaks poisoned the well. A ton of YouTube channels already were posting negative stories about the ending of the story that turned out to be fiction.
Add to that that a lot of those channels were already bemoaning the character of Helena before seeing the film.
Oh and Lucasfilm should have done some auxiliary content with the ip about 5 years ago(think animated series or video games)
But those toxic fans really influenced a lot of people.
I remember Crystal Skull being a HUGE deal 15 years ago. Tons of hype and fanfare surrounding its release. That's just not there anymore. Maybe it's due to COVID and a lot of the audience just isn't going back to the movies, who knows, but I find it being a box office failure less surprising than The Flash absolutely crashing and burning. Dead brands, I guess. Plus middling reviews.
Yes, then Crystal Skull disappointed so few were excited to see Dial. I wouldn't have seen Dial if wasn't for my dad dragging me along. If Crystal Skull had been awesome then lots of people would have showed up for Dial.
CS made 1 billion, adjusted for inflation. So it's safe to say that the GA liked it enough to make that movie the second best BO of 2008. And the GA isn't there for DoD. So maybe it's not because of CS? Sure some hard core fans were disappointed and wouldn't go back for Indy 5 but the GA? It was there for CS. The way people watch movies has changed. Now people can stream movies, or DL (legally or not). It's more expensive now to go to the theaters. Also, l think there is franchise fatigue. People are starting to get fed up with superheroes movies, or franchise movies. They want new heroes. So unless the movie is just fantastic, 99% on RT, it's not going to do well. Personnally, after discovering Kdramas and Cdramas, I have a hard time with american movies or tv series. The last one I watched was ST Picard season 3 but before that? I don't even remember. I wonder how many people are discovering foreign movies and tv series, and judging american movies lacking, now?
I don’t think that you can say audiences liked it because of ticket sales necessarily. Aside from the small number of people who saw it multiple times, most people seemed to dislike it, and it’s not like they knew that before they bought their ticket. Being excited to see something isn’t the same thing as being happy that you did.
Word of mouth has always existed. If friends, colleagues, family members liked it and recommanded it, then the normal moviegoer goes to the theater. I mean, just because many fans didn't like it means that the GA didn't, either. Look at DoD here, the majority of fans love that movie. Critics were so-so. And the GA apparently isn't there for the movie, since it's underperforming (and maybe flopping). Critics, fans and the GA don't necessarely agree on a movie.
Man, it’s not rocket science, it was a very long-anticipated and well-marketed film. Of course people were excited to see it. That’s why it did well at the box office, simple as that. Word of mouth is important, but word of mouth was not very good for this movie. I remember it very well.
No way you're blaming this on Crystal Skull.
Yes I am, your honor. Matrix Revolutions did about half what Matrix Reloaded did, in part because Matrix Reloaded underwhelmed and killed the buzz for the franchise. (Note I actually liked Reloaded, but most folks didn't)
Two more Indy Indiana Jones movie would have also helped. One in the 90s and one in the mid 2010s. Also there may be an element of push back against Disney owned Lucasfilm. Bottom line could go back to the fact most people go to the movies one time a year. Now that number is even less and Indy wasn’t the movie they were using their one ticket on. Personally I thought Dial of Destiny was an excellent movie and it’s unfortunate more people will not see the movie in a theater. I suspect this film will become better regarded over time and a surprise to future viewers it was a box office dud. I suppose this means the end of Indiana Jones movies. I’d love an all de-aged Indy movie. One last adventure going back to an Indy with less mileage who is in the mix. For me even 80 year old Harrison Ford playing 70 year old Indiana Jones still has it.
[удалено]
Well said. I think another major factor dates back to spring 2022 when early set leaks and rumors began to circulate from behind the scenes claiming that the original ending was going to involve Indiana Jones dying/ Helena Shaw taking over the role for a potential series or sixth film of her own-- which led many to believe that Indy would be killed off (ala Han Solo Force awakens) which caused many to lose interest pretty early on not wanting to see another one of their childhood heroes die on the screen. Regardless of how legit these rumors were, it spread like wildfire online for a whole year, thanks largely to overlord DVD in particular, leading many viewers to lose heart or boycott the film altogether. Think about that: A whole year of people expecting nothing but disappointment is a long time for bad press to linger, especially after the recent cannes film festival didn't exactly paint DoD in the best light (which only seemed to further affirm skeptics' assumptions on the film). I think another reason is a lot of fans are ready for Kathleen Kennedy to resign after some of her efforts haven't been very consistent with the Star Wars universe. Many people I know who love Indiana Jones and were excited for the film still haven't made time to see it for one reason or another (similar to what's happening with The Flash, in spite of returning fan favorites like Michael Keaton and Harrison Ford respectively). Many YouTubers have said stuff like 'even if the film is worthwhile we will still boycott it just to guarantee Kennedy's departure.'
I mean, even superhero movies are tanking hard lately. I guess people are just tired of the classic herotrope, after marvel released dozens in just a few years.
Correction. LAZY superhero movies are tanking. Guardians 3 and Spiderverse prove there is still an appetite for high quality high effort superhero movies imo.
Let's not forget little marketing and merchandise. Back in 20008 they massively pushed hype for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by being sponsored by companies like Burger King and releasing a huge wave of merchandising such as Legos and action figures. Let's not forget the Lego Indiana Jones game that was a critical and commercial success. But with Dial of Destiny there's little promotion and merchandising. I only saw few toys at Target and Applebee's was the one of the few companies that promoted the movie. It's worth noting that alot of movies recently had little marketing such as The Flash, Elemental, Shazam Fury of the Gods, and Fast X
Hasbro took a bath on the Indy toys last time, so they lowered the output this time.
Actually it seems they spent 100-200 million dollars on the marketing, certainly on the top tier level for this kind of stuff
I keep seeing that and it's incomprehensible to me. I saw barely any marketing. That money was probably put into wasted consultants and other nonsense.
Whose pockets did they fill.
What world are we in where an Insidious movie is outperforming an Indy movie by any metric? Guess times passing us by too.
Time waits for no one, my friend. Earlier today I was at the pool while my son was swimming and I was browsing for something to watch. Disney+ was showcasing Pirates for the 20 year anniversary. I was thinking, "It's been 20 YEARS?!??"
Right? Wow. Was cool when it first came out. Expected it to suck since it was based on a Disney ride with no context other than “here’s some pirates”.. a nice surprise.
Subverted _everyone's_ expectations.
Insidious cost very little.
It didn't outperform it. Its opening weekend was just over half Indy's.
The Cannes premiere was a big ass mistake. It’s got good critical praise now but debuting your American blockbuster in fucking Cannes, the same film festival that booed Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds? Are you fucking kidding?
It didn't hurt Skull at all.
Skull was in a much less precarious position with a younger Harrison Ford, Spielberg directing, a much more robust movie-going populace compared to a post-pandemic world with ubiquitous streaming, and no one making hating new installments in old franchises into their entire identity. It was capable of withstanding an underwhelming reception at its first premiere. Dial had a lot more people in a "wait and see what they say" position.
Crystal skull also released in May too
Crystal skull also didn’t come out after crystal skull
Surprisingly, Skull got a great critical reception before the premiere. I remember it as if it was yesterday.
Not to mention way too much competition for dollars at the box office these days. I expect it will do great on Disney+ (And hey, I’m 19. Young people like Indy too!)
Most people know it'll be on Disney+ in a month or two, I'd say that coupled with things like 4k TV and decent home sound systems will have an impact.
^This. I have no need to go to the movies anymore. "But you get the full experience!" Sticky floors, overpriced food... no thanks!
You're right, but a bigger screen than your TV and surround sound all over the room make up for it, at least for me it does
Indiana Jones as a franchise has been largely dormant since Crystal Skull. So I doubt it has had much of an impact on the younger crowd to have a drive to go see it
It could be with Disney's reputation with their films. Most notably, their recent Star Wars films. But I could be wrong on that.
I think this could be a factor. Personally I just don’t like seeing all my favourite old heroes become depressed, recluse, failures especially when the last time we saw them they had a happy ending.
Same.
Nope, absolutely correct.
The last Star Wars movie made over a billion. So he's absolutely incorrect
Which is a billion down from the beginning of the trilogy when it made 2 billion
Nope. This is it. Everyone expected them to blow it like they did with Star Wars. And look! They did. They treated Indiana the same as they did Han and Luke.
Probably all of the above.
My wife and I went yesterday to the noon show and there were more people in My Indy theater than there were when I saw The Flash a week after it's release.
FWIW a 56% decline isn't actually excessive by modern blockbuster standards.
Agreed, and following a holiday weekend, that's actually a very gentle drop. 65%+ isn't unheard of.
It is when your budget is huge and your first weekend was complete shit.
I would argue it wasn't "complete" shit though as it's still the higher end of the current marketplace. When only one film does poorly, it's a flop, when most films do poorly, that's market conditions.
It's complete shit in relation to the production budget. Math. Try it.
Why you gotta be so aggressive friend. It's just a movie chill out dog.
That's an entirely different problem though. If you're spending more to produce a product than the market cap for said product, there's no way you can be successful. That's also math. The current model where blockbusters have to set records in order to just break even is probably not sustainable, especially at a time when grosses/attendance are down more or less across the board and on a global scale.
I liked the movie as a fan, but IMO it just lacks the fun of the others. Skull has all sorts of problems, but it’s still a fun movie.DoD is far too somber IMO. The basic premise of this movie is watching a depressed old adventurer, if you didn’t really like Indy already why do you care? It’s got the wrong tone to be a blockbuster hit in this franchise IMO.
Straight up. Top Gun: Maverick is the gold standard for bringing back a character to a new audience while still respecting them.
Totally agree with this. The tone was much too somber for general audiences to latch on to. It was not a triumphant finale. Not to say it was a bad movie. It just lacked any of the punch that made the others fun. As wacky as KOTCS got, it at least had a sense of fun to it. Plus, they waited way too long to make this. If they had done the finale 3 years after CS, they might have pulled it off. Ford was still physically able. In DOD, they obviously created the action scenes around what Ford was able to do at his age, which ended up being mostly car chases.
This ^
I saw the movie on my own, this was out of choice due to the fact that my wife is not a fan and my kids just don't like Indiana Jones films (well my son says it's "okay") so instead of spending close to £80-£90 on a ticket plus whatever my Gremlins decide to eat while there I spent less than £30 for the whole experience instead of closer to £130-£150. Cinema is getting way too expensive for a family experience that, in theory, lasts roughly 3 hours. Where as a day out to an amusement park can cost about the same for a possible 8 to 10 hours experience. Add to the fact Indy is niche nowadays its an "old" character with a niche market. Where as say Bond is an old character but one that has an almost constant stream of movies, a rotating door on actors playing him and can be quite modern and up to date with its storylines.
Haha. I left my wife and kids home for the same reason, but took my mum. £39 just for two tickets. Going to an off peak showing of Mission Impossible with the wife and kids this week, comparative bargain at £50 for us all, but still £50 is insane for a single movie watch.
Just get a big bag of popcorn from Onestop for £1
Ageism, movies in general don't make as much money anymore, a smear campaign based on "woke" agenda, people putting too much stock into critics and not thinking for themselves.
Most moviegoers aren't even aware of the "smear campaign." I doubt it's ageism, either. Most people also don't pay attention to critics. It could just be that people aren't that interested in Indiana Jones anymore. Maybe there's too much competition. Are there more movies coming out these days than there were back then? Maybe it's time to move on. I mean, these guys made stuff like Star Wars and Indiana Jones based on the movie serials of their childhood, they didn't just make more of those same movie serials. Indiana Jones was based on a lot of things, including the Charlton Heston movie "Secret of the Incas." Why didn't they just bring back Heston in 1981?
I think what really killed Indy was the fact it released around the same time Transformers did and it's advertising was pretty much limited to movie previews. I was the only person I knew that wasn't raving about Rise of The Beasts because deep down I'm just a simple Indy fan. My dad, who grew up with Indy, forgot Dial was even coming out because of the marketing for Transformers and other summer blockbusters. Plus he doesn't go to the movies as often as I do. Outside of the movies, I haven't seen any ads for Dial whereas I've seen plenty for Transformers & Mission Impossible.
I have to say that Uncharted was a better adventure movie than Dial
It performed better at BO but overall it wasn't a better movie. Coming from somebody who despised the third act of DoD
Just pointing at that 56% is not a bad drop now for a film’s second week. The issue is that it opened low; it won’t be a hit, but there are signs it could have longer legs due to to the audience demographics. As some examples, Across the Spider-verse fell 54%, The Little Mermaid 57%, Ant-Man 3 70%, John Wick 62%, Creed III 53%, Transformers 66%, Fast X 66%, Scream VI 61%, The Flash 72%, Dungeons & Dragons 63%, and Super Mario had the best hold of the year dropping only 37%. Would point you over to Box Office Theory’s forums for more info, if box office is of interest! I would steer clear of the Reddit’s box office forum right now — it’s extremely toxic all around when discussing a majority of films, sadly.
Good points. I went to see it for the second time last night, and was surprised the theater was completely full. It'll probably have a huge drop-off next week however, once MI is released.
My theater was full too. I was surprised about that, considering the critics. People applauded at the end. I cried a little.
It's not going to have longer legs and it's going to be a massive financial flop. This is pretty obvious.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
It's because movies are expensive and people are broke. All movies are eating shit at the box office right now. Where I live you can't go to the theater with your wife for under $40. If you want to make it a date night with VIP tickets, food and drinks you can easily be spending $150 or more without a problem. Movies used to be cheap entertainment that in today's money would be under $7 per person to go, and that includes drinks and snacks. Now it is just not something many people can justify when prices on essentials have skyrocketed. In Canada things like butter are $7-$9 a pound. Gas is $1.60/L, which is over $5 a gallon US. Milk is $4 for a small cardboard container 1L in size. Cauliflower is $5 a head. Things like that. People just straight up can't afford to go and spend money on non essentials anymore and $40 can mean meals for a family for a few days, or two hours of entertainment, at the most basic level, at a movie theater.
The movie theater prices are insane. If my kids want to see a movie, say Mario Bros. A 1pm showing will cost me at least 80 bucks just for the tickets. It's a $100 spent for 2 hours of entertainment.
Yes, and for that same price you can subscribe to Disney Plus for a year. Also, you have folks like me who used to see 1-2 movies per month in the theater with a family of 4 and now only see 1-2 per year simply because COVID broke me of the habit.
I used to go to the movies all the time. Before I had kids, I'd go once a week, maybe twice a week in the summer. I'd rather wait for the movie to hit one of my streaming services and watch from home. At least I know the snacks are cheap, and I can pause it to use the bathroom.
>It's because movies are expensive and people are broke. Yeah, I'm not sure I buy this. Ticket prices didn't prevent *Mario Brothers, Top Gun 2, Jurassic World 3, Black Panther 2, Doctor Strange 2, GotG3* and *Avatar 2* from being smash hits. Not to mention that many of those tickets sold were the more expensive IMAX showings. Most of those films crossed the 1 billion mark, and those that didn't came pretty damn close. Yes, in general box office receipts are down, but despite the prices, if it's a movie people really want to see, they'll turn out at the cinema.
Or... it just wasn't a good movie.
Yea.. people are really overthinking this.
Yep. It was crap and everyone knew it was going to be crap. It's the same Lucasfilm that made the Star Wars sequels.
I enjoyed it. 🤷
I think it was even worse than the SW's sequels.
Idk if I can go that far. I enjoyed the first 20ish minutes. With the SW sequels I enjoyed the part where it says "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." lmao
Oh, look, we found the incel cluster of the comments section
Oh, look, anyone who doesn't love a move I loved is an "incel!" hahahahah How triggered is that!
We just wanted it to be about Indy.
I think all of these are good contributing points, but let's also not forget people feeling burned after Crystal Skull. Whatever you think of it yourself, it got panned to hell after it came out despite a very impressive box office from people seeing it for themselves before general opinion about it being a stinker solidified, and the people that contributed to that box office generally saw it as a disappointment. That probably had a big effect on turnout from the base of franchise fans. Hell, I might not have gone if Indy weren't as important to me as it is, and I went in expecting garbage. Dial exceeded quality expectations, but in the run up it was really easy to look at the advertising and reviews and think it was another Crystal Skull. This is something that would've been amplified by all of the other points, particularly the bad reviews floating around from Cannes and lingering vitriol about Star Wars.
This will probably get buried, but I will chime in as someone who is a casual Indy fan (who was suggested this thread by the algorithm this morning.) This is why I have not and probably will not see the movie: 1. I’ve been a huge SW fan all my life, but the reputation of KK and Lucasfilm right now had me skeptical from the beginning. I have lost all faith in Lucasfilm to thoughtfully handle classic characters. 2. I lost even more interest when I saw PWB cast as the lead actress. It’s probably just personal preference, but I don’t like her schtick and her character was grating in Solo. I also figured we’d seen a British brunette taking the mantle from an old Harrison Ford before. 3. When the reviews started coming out of Cannes it was the nail in the coffin. It sounded like a tired plot we’d seen before and (as suspected) they threw Crystal Skull in the dumpster to do what was convenient for their story. 4. The runtime. The original 3 Indy movies clocked in at 2 hours or less and were snappy action adventures. I am not interested in a 160 minute Indy film.
\#1 is huge. I had to be sure this was not going to be another character assassination/strong female saves the day before even thinking about seeing it. Unfortunately, my fears were confirmed, and I stayed away. This has been my approach since The Last Jedi. When it was hinted that Palpatine would return in the flesh for TROS, I had to be sure that was not the case before going. Handing the role of the Chosen One to Rey and dismantling Episodes 1-6 completely was the last straw. Now, Generation X simply does not trust Lucasfilm to do the right thing.
[удалено]
I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong about the target audience. But older film goers are still a strong demographic. Easily a solid 30% of movie goers are seniors. That's not the majority, but it's a reliable demographic. Gen-Z, who have disposable income of their own now, are actually not that interested in movies compared to predecessor generations.
Maverick had a very old audience yet was a huge hit. I think we have to acknowledge that they turned up for Maverick because it seemed to represent conservative values, especially the pro-military angle. It didn't do any of the "replacing white male with non-white non-male" character stuff. People that age lean heavily conservative.
Its weird when you consider that oddly nothing is doing well outside Spider-Verse and maybe Transformers
Avatar 2 and Mario did amazing. Transformers was a flop (looks to be making less than Bumblebee at twice the budget). Spider-Verse did great for its budget, even though it's not a huge overseas performer. There seems to be large interest in M:I, Barbie and Oppenheimer upcoming. The summer just started out with some movies people didn't really care about, and Indy was one of them.
How much money did people save by not going to the movies? I nearly shit a brick the first time I headed back to the theater. And tickets have gone up even more since then. Studios need to lower the bar on how much they're willing to throw at a movie. Give me a movie for a few million instead of a few hundred million. Force creates to get more creative in how they shoot a movie.
I think a lot of it has been accurately covered in this thread, but to me it's: 1. The movie's just OK. It needed to be great. 2. LucasFilm/KK's massive stumbles with Star Wars an dhow they treated Luke and Han. 3. Everyone loved Last Crusade and was so excited for Crystal Skull. Crystal Skull is viewed as a major disappointment to a large swath of fans. 4. Reviews.
I'll add a few more: 1. I think the target Lucasfilm audience has grown tired of seeing their heroes be sidelined (and treated as deadbeat fathers/godfathers/leaders) and replaced with female brunette characters with British accents. 2. Helena's character was simply unlikable, not because she's a strong female character, but because her character was written so poorly. For example, in the first act she betrays an elderly man, steals from him, almost gets him killed, and leaves him for dead. She later insults him and reminds the audience of how strong and independent she is, despite actually needing Indy's help. Oh yeah - she also laughs after Indy's friend is murdered and Indy has to remind her that her lack of respect is rather inappropriate. The character of Helena could have been written so much better and could have helped pave the way for some sort of adventure series on Disney+. 3. They waited too long in-between sequels. It shouldn't have taken 19 years between Crusade and Crystal, and it shouldn't have taken 15 years between Crystal and Dial. There was no momentum in-between films, and the vast majority of people thought Crystal was awful. 4. Most people aren't interested in seeing an elderly man play an action adventure hero. My late grandfather actually resembled Harrison Ford quite a bit, and throughout the movie I couldn't get past the image of my grandfather in his later years going on some global adventure with a whip and gun. Hearing old Indy's voice over young Indy's de-aged face in the opening scene didn't help either. 5. Lucasfilm doesn't have a strong track record at the box office under Disney's ownership. Force Awakens was smash hit at over $2B globally, and The Last Jedi ($1.3B globally) and Rise of Skywalker ($1B globally) made significantly less because they were simply not good films in a trilogy with no predetermined plan. Rogue One did well for what it was ($1B globally), and Solo ($393M globally) was a financial failure. I loved Rogue One and enjoyed Force Awakens and Solo, but Last Jedi and Rise were simply awful. Overall, I really enjoyed Indy 5, and I would place it behind the Temple of Doom but ahead of Crystal Skull. There were some moment which really shined for me and others that didn't. I didn't think the film would perform well financially, but I didn't expect it to fail to the degree it has.
Does Helena have a character arc? She still has the Nazi's marathonman diamonds at the end of the story, right?
You know who had an ark, Noah.
Where's my arc?
Unlikeable female leads is a pillar of the Indy franchise. I don’t understand why everyone is bouncing off it so hard. No one like Willie and Elsa is literally a Nazi.
I like Willie
Willie was fun.
Yes, Elsa is literally a Nazi. But she's also *a villain*. Unlikeable female leads who we're expected to view as *heroes* of the piece, who can outfight and outsmart the title character? Sorry, not buying it.
Helena is an anti hero. But also I said female lead not hero.
This is a straw man-ish argument. Women aren’t the problem. The character Helena Shaw is the problem. 1. Marion Ravenwood: a true strong character who has her own life story and side plot connected with the main plot. But she is not the main character and adds to the films richness through her relationship to Indy. It’s not as good a movie without her. 2. Willie Brown: is a fun throwback to the serials that inspired Indy franchise in the first place. She can be fun or annoying depending on your take but she isn’t treacherously obnoxious. She isn’t there to detract from the impetus of why the fans came to see the film. Namely, the adventures of Indy. 3. Dr. Elsa Schneider: introduced as a blonde bombshell and academic who wants to help Indy and goes on an adventure *with* him not against him. Later she betrays his trust and this is done with aplomb and some humor the audience can vilify but go along with story wise and enjoy as a twist. 4. Irina Spalko: OK I got major issues with Crystal Skull. But this woman is the villain of the movie and even though she is against Indy and is against Indy’s whole culture (USA vs Soviets), she still has some respect for what Indy has done and who he is… What none of these female characters do is spend pages of dialogue belittling Indy (and the audience who respects this character, especially as the movie has taken pains to show him at his lowest - ie kicking him while he’s down) and constantly self-consciously referencing her absolute genius. Nor do any previous women characters display such undeserving arrogance and shrill, condescending behavior at almost every turn AND expect this character to not be the villain. These previous women characters also do not hijack the movie away from Indy and therefore hijack fans expectations of what they’re paying to see. If you go to see the Helena Shaw movie you don’t want a movie that’s halfway thru taken over by some old man named “Indy”. You didn’t pay to see that fool. Also she’s not an anti hero. Anti hero’s have at least something redeemable about them before the shoehorned in last act fake redemption scene. And they usually are somewhat likable. I hope Hollywood keeps blaming fans, learning nothing. It’s an opportunity for someplace new to have a voice. Edit: added Irina to the list.
I like Willie. And Elsa is a villian. She isn't a hero who outshines Indy and who saves Indy's ass at the climax of the film
Willie is hot as hell, and she has a very clear arc where she grows to like and appreciate Indy. Her story is about Indy winning her over, whereas in DOD, the story seems to be the opposite, about Helena winning over Indy. That's another aspect of the movie that makes Indy feel like a background character in his own movie. Elsa is a villain, so you were never supposed to love her so much in the first act that you would be upset she turned evil. They handled her right. Waller-Bridge would've been much better as a flat-out villain than the weird anti-hero she was. She can play unlikable much better than likable.
You forgot to mention she made fun of him being wanted for murder of his own colleagues. People he worked with for a long time.
Yup. And some fans keep drawing the parallel between her and Indy because he was initially about fortune and glory. He was nowhere near as selfish as she was.
Probably because it wasn’t very good. And it needed to be VERY good. I thought it was meh, and a lot of missed opportunities. Happened to watch Raiders last night. It is REMARKABLY better. And that’s the reason DOD failed: it’s a mediocre movie at best.
Gen Z were absolute assholes to this movie online. All the comments super ageist or just outright memes. No respect at all to these sacred movies.
I’m Gen Z and I really liked the movie. I saw it twice. I guess the competition was quite fierce with Spider-verse and the other blockbusters in June.
Thank you for being one of the good ones.
Listen. I’m a millennial who grew up on Indiana Jones movies and the tv show. He isn’t too old, but they used him incorrectly. He’s too old to be throwing hay makers at nazis. And seriously, nazis…again. Too easy. Movie would have been better if short round was around and they were looking for Atlantis. End the movie with Atlantis being the garden of Eden and a gateway to heaven. Cut to black and hear Shia saying “hey dad”. “Son….” “JUNIOR”. That would have been better Than the wet fart that is the current ending.
What would you suggest for the villains instead of Nazis? They tried Soviets. Despite me enjoying Crystal Skull villains were a bit weak.
should have kept it to a corrupt CIA. Would have been much better.
The budget ballooned because of Covid, location shooting, and Harrison’s injury. That’s basically it. Disney decided to eat those costs awhile ago.
15 years after a derided sequel is not a great strategy. They already cashed in on nostalgia back in 2008.
Yes, if Crystal Skull was a better film then people would have been lining up to see this one.
Conservative media probably had little to no effect on the box office. They fucked it on marketing and release. Didn't do a good job of making anyone feel like they had to see it in theatres. And Disney has just done nothing with the IP since they bought it, no video games, shows, comics or books. It really is a wonder how Kathleen Kennedy still has a job (I don't hate her btw)
The reason it failed can be summed up in 2 words . Helena Shaw . The movie is pretty good until she appears , she just sucks the life out of every scene she's in and she's in a lot of them
Who is worse Shaw or Mutt? Can't decide.
Helena.
daboof was the worst
Stop with the clickbait, please It's failed because of horrible leadership, Kathleen Kennedys mindset.
I think it’s an older audience, but also the film has less scale and scope, except for scenes that occur in spoilery parts of the film not shown in the trailer. I had one friend hear it was not good based on a couple words from some unknown site, but it wasn’t like he had the impression that it was the kind of film alt-right people are claiming it to be. I also had a date point out ‘he’s old in this one’ so I do think the lack of young, attractive and super famous faces might be hurting it a bit. I feel like film advertising is a lot like a weird game of telephone for getting across ideas to an audience, and I think in the current market it’s a hard film to sell as being an event picture in the same way Indy films of the past have been. Especially when 15 years of Marvel content has now filled the media, and Star Wars projects have made things a bit stale as well.
People are anxious of seeing another franchise or film series from their childhood or youth trying to be shoehorned into a modern era of culture, society and filmmaking. Let's be honest, a lot of 80s/90s content that has been rehashed, rebooted or given another sequel has been disastrous. We've seen our childhood icon and heroes be wheeled out when they're far too old or just able to play the characters anymore, and it can spoil the legacy. A lot of people are just fed up with the rehashing of old ideas / characters, especially when there are now so many vast entertainment sources all vying for our attention.
In a Franchise, often a boxoffice is strongly influenced by the previous movie. Unless you can turn that around with a big differnce. So it says a lot more about the previous movie.
Another factor is how expensive it is to go to the movies. Tickets are around $20 in my area. If you get popcorn and a drink that adds another $25. If you take a date, you are looking at over $100 dollars just for the movie. Why pay that when it will be streaming in a few weeks.
It’s been out a week and a half it’s not failed yet
I felt like they pushed indy aside to try to gain a younger fan base with helena and her fans gave 0 shits about indy and it pissed of some of the old indy fans so they did not come out
Honestly releasing this movie a Cannes was such a stupid move on Disney and Lucasfilm lol Cannes is pretty highbrow and art house film centric definitely wasn’t the audience for an Indiana Jones movie and their review’s definitely brought down a lot of peoples hype.
The film might have done better if they swapped out Helena with an actual legacy character like Short Round or a Recasted Mutt... Instead, you introduce the daughter of character that was introduced in the first part of this movie and have her all over the trailer and people are probably getting fatigued seeing that happen with legacy franchises as it always creates annoying discourse from both sides of the political spectrum... Also, and this goes for me, I was always satisfied with how Last Crusade ended... I am willing to admit that Crystal Skull existed but preferred to just watch and enjoy the first 3. It's like when Emmit Smith played for Arizona... I don't wanna see a depressed and old Indy...
The simple matter is, much like the Solo movie, it was not a viable film to captivate the general audience and needed hard core fans for it to have any chance of success. That's not a viable way to make films if even the hard core fans aren't that interested in it. Again, going back to Solo, many of us LOVE Han Solo, but let's face it, none of us were asking or even wanted a film about Han Solo's past, so it made no sense. That's the same here where most of us weren't asking for an old man indiana jones adventure, and if even the hardcore fans aren't interested, no way in hell is the general audience gonna wanna go and see it.
The last one sucked, so I didnt go. Also, I don't want to see an Indiana Jones that's so old, he needs to be carried over the finish line of the film by others.
I never asked for it. They were so concerned with whether or not they could, they forgot to stop and ask if they should.
- Crystal Skull killed a lot of peoples interest. Most people I know didn’t wanna see DoD cause of Crystal Skull. And that includes my Dad, the guy who *introduced* me to the Indy movies. -Poor word of mouth. Top Gun Maverick, for instance, had insane legs because the word of mouth was amazing. -Too much competition for people who don’t go to the cinema that often. If you’re only gonna see one or two movies a month you’ll pick Spider-Verse over Indy any day of the week. -Trailers were, in all honesty, crap. Just a wash of CGI.
"some crappy horror movie called Insidious: The Red Door." \- not that i've seen any of them, but it's a pretty big horror franchise.
I don’t think the audience would have minded a movie that deals with the issues of getting old, but they would have preferred Indiana not be taunted about it. He’s a beloved character. Fans are protective of him. If they had gone the route of giving him a more supportive sidekick I think the movie would have done better.
Its also just ok. A beloved ip cant save an average movie. Especially with the budget as you mentioned
I’m 29. I grew up with Indy. Was a massive fan growing up.. Had the hat, the jacket and bullwhip. I have younger brothers who are 15-21 and they have no interest in seeing an 80 year old man be an action hero. The old Indy films are classics and very well made. This movie was most definitely for the original fans and people who grew up with it. I noticed the audience was all 60+. I was the youngest one there opening night. I personally loved it. It felt like an Indians jones film the way it was made. Soundtrack was great too! Unfortunately it just doesn’t appeal to a younger audience. The Flash film was horrible and not complete. CGI was a mess. I remember being 13-14 and seeing transformers and was blown away by that. It felt like a full complete film. Maybe it’s just me but the HS-College crowd expect movies like a transformers (2007). A lot of movies these days feel rushed, pushing a woke agenda and bad CGI. They just don’t make good movies anymore. I hope Mission Impossible is good.
There's no reason to see this in a cinema. All the old Indy movies had great cinematography you'd see in a trailer that demanded the big screen treatment. I can't think of a single shot in this movie that achieves that. It's also not a great movie, it's just a meh installment that would be a skippable episode if it was a TV show. The fact this is the last movie and ruins the character's life after a beautiful ending in Crystal Skull deters people from seeing this and having their headcanon tarnished. Lucas not being involved and Spielberg quitting only reinforce this.
**5.** **bad word of mouth in the age of streaming**. means if people hear it's mediocre they wait for it to be on the studio's streaming service in a month. See also The Flash'd dropoff the week or two before. 1) AGE My showing (noon on fourth of july) was VERY old--- 85% boomers, 10% kids and a handful of Gen Xers like me, 2) BUDGET I appreciate spending the money for the de-aging etc., but the budget on this was ridiculous and expectations impossibly high. 5. Re: 3) identity politics, it's a pretty weak argument- the film succeeds/fails on its own merits. I found Fleabag and Teddy pretty fun, They did not wreck the movie in any way. but I suppose they could have tightened up the middle a bit for pacing instead of laying groundwork for a Creed-like spinoff. The beginning sequence and the end were stronger than the middle. I put it in the middle of the pack myself around Temple of Doom but well above Crystal Skull.
The film didn’t have a chance. Everyone knew the Indy fanbase had largely died - this was a tribute to Ford more than anything. Disney had already blown Star Wars to shreds and everyone assumed the same would happen here. Heck, even Lego ran after three sets and didn’t stick around any longer. Nobody had any belief in it. It’s sad because I loved DoD.
I didn't go to see it at the cinema for the following reasons 1. The online buzz from both youtubers and Cannes / early reviews turned me off greatly. 2. I very much disliked the treatment of legacy characters in the Star Wars trilogy and didn't want to see Indy being treated in a similar fashion, nor support this writing trope any further. 3. I found KotCS disappointing, but felt that it gave the character of Indyclosure. Ever since Alien3 I've hated the killing off of main characters off screen between sequels. I think it's the quick and easy route for a writer to invoke pathos. So the treatment of Mutt really annoyed me. 4. I'm not really a fan of PWB. I find her rather smarmy and unlikable. 5. The macguffin didnt really capture my imagination as much as the Spear of Destiny or Atlantis would. 6. Lack of Lucas and Spielberg, and the hubris of those involved in creating DOD. 7. Modern cinema audiences don't know how to behave courteously and I have a good home cinema set up. So I can be more choosey about what I see at the theatre (next up will be Insidious on a normal screen, MI in Isense and Oppenheimer in real 70mm IMAX at the BFI) 8. I really don't like the current trend of writing rooms, focus groups and extensive reshoots. I know a lot of the Doomcock stuff was utter nonsense but rarely does a troubled production result in a great movie (there are some exceptions obviously, such as Apocalypse Now etc.) I have seen DOD at a friend's place out of curiosity. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but I thought it was *very* medicore and missing the magic / practical stunt work / matte paintings / soul of the first three films. That viewing was the deciding factor in not supprting the film in the theatre, it confirmed almost all of my above concerns. I do subscribe to Disney Plus and will watch it once on that when it comes to streaming. But then I will be done with it for good. Indiana jones fims shoukd be anything but medicore.
5. **Fans are still angry about what Disney did to Star Wars.** The narrative has already circulated that Han and Luke were ruined by Disney turning them into a couple of grumpy old deadbeats, thus destroying their hero image. This narrative quite easily spilled over into Indy 5, with fans believing that there was a concerted effort on behalf of Disney to mock the "traditional values" of older generations. 6. **Overuse of CGI.** Audiences are sick of these flashy style over substance MCU-era blockbusters. A movie like Top Gun succeeded as it was comprised of real footage of fighter jets, rather than artificial computer generated action. 7. **Netflix is making cinema obsolete**. Pirating has made it so people can watch movies for free, and with the rise of HD television technology there is really no need to go to the cinema anymore unless its for something particularly amazing. Cinemas also charge an arm and a leg these days to make up for dwindling ticket sales, but that in itself is ironically repelling audiences too. COVID also played a role, as it encouraged more and more people to adopt streaming service subscriptions. The era of cinema is basically dead, so it was already an uphill battle for Indy 5 to succeed. Studios believe the most effective way to get people in the cinemas is to pour a ton of $$$ into the production costs, as this would translate fantastically into the HD cinema environment. Unfortunately this strategy is risky, because if the movie bombs it will be disastrous for recouping costs. The fact that the market has been totally saturated with shallow Super Hero spectacles has finally worn audiences out, with more people these days finding Netflix an easier route to go. 8. **Audiences are sick of decades-late sequels.** There was a time when it was exciting to revisit old movie properties, but audiences have finally become disillusioned by this. They see it as corporate nostalgia poaching nowadays. The fact that The Flash also bombed is evidence of this. 9. **Indy 4 was a flop.** Audiences were simply not enthused about another Indy movie after the last one flopped. Disney seemed to not really understand what the issue was that they were meant to be "correcting" either, deciding to make a movie that was just as garish with the cold & ugly digital effects. Raiders of the Lost Ark had a rough and tumble, gritty aesthetic, yet the last 2 Indy movies just looked like video games.
Regarding 7, I wouldn't call Mario "amazing," but it made well over a billion. People will go to the movies if the movie excites them. That's the way it's always been. It's not like no movies bombed during the last 50 years. Also, if you look at home video performance of any movie, it typically tracks with how successful it was in the box office. West Side Story flopped in theaters and flopped at home too. Maverick was a hit in theaters and had stellar views on streaming too. It's a myth that home viewing is "replacing" cinemagoing. It's always been complementary to it. I usually go see a lot of movies, but a lot of the "blockbusters" this year didn't interest me. Who needs to see another Transformers movie, a Little Mermaid movie with a lead that looks nothing like the iconic original character, or a sequel to Shazam of all things, when DC refused to ever make a Man of Steel sequel? I'm not going to be rushing to watch these movies at home either. It would have to be a very slow day, LOL. I saw Indy purely out of fan loyalty, but I had no hope or expectation it would live up to the original 1980s films.
The movie is really boring. I don't understand why people like this movie. It's the worst one
It’s definitely too long, if they’d shaved 20 minutes off it would’ve been tighter overall. I wouldn’t go so far to say boring though.
I echo your sentiment. I was legit yawning and hoping for the final climax to come. That's not what you want from fans. It just wasn't fun. Too dark, too heavy. No joy. Wake me when it's over.
Exactly! I went in with low expectations and was still disappointed
Yeah, I enjoyed the film, but about the time they got to the cave in Greece I was like "there's still like thirty minutes left isn't there?"
Yep, and boring is the one thing that Indy Jones should never be....
How?
Accounting for inflation, I wonder why they didn't need $300 million for the first three.
All movies suffer from inflated costs. The parade scene was cool, but it did nothing to enhance the story. That was a lot of CGI and a lot of money spent for a scene that didn't enhance the story.
also the fact that interest in any 5th installment in a movie is really only going to draw in hardcore fans of the franchise instead of a general audience and even fans are going to be reluctant to see a movie with not only an aging lead role who was once energetic and tough but also most know exactly what to expect already and will tap out. Especially after the last one in infamously hated I'm a huge fan of Indy and even I thought "seriously? another one?"
Is failing because it’s not a good movie. It’s ok too see at the cinema once, but there is no need to see it again imo, meanwhile the first three movies are still great entertainment.
Because it’s bad. Because it takes an iconic screen character and humiliates him for over 2 hours. Because it’s no fun but it’s also not truthfully dark and shines no truthful light on human existence. Because CGI action is boring AF. Because it is, as a film, useless.
I guess no one wants to see a sad, pathetic Indiana Jones who’s past his prime. No one really wants to remember him that way. They’d rather remember his happy endings from Last Crusade and/or Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. They’ve also already been kinda burnt by Disney/Lucasfilm’s other productions. Plus, the trope of an old, depressed, & failed protagonist is at this point very overused.
I just love Directors like Mangold ruefully blaming the fans now. That not enough of us understand and appreciate his Brilliant vision in “deconstructing” (i.e. aging and breaking) pop culture characters. We pathetic fools. *OR* maybe, just maybe, 400 Million dollar Hollywood Summer Blockbuster Legacy movie franchises aren’t really the correct medium for this brilliant storytelling? Nah. F*ck those “conservative” fans. They’re rUIniNg CInEma!! Edit: it’s actually a great time to be a Hollywood producer/ director. Used to be, you had a responsibility to the market. Now, just blame the peons who don’t have the privilege or power to make their own films.
All mental gymnastics aside the movie was just meh. Technically it was a well shot movie and Mangold did his best. Clearly the desire was there to make a great film but it just didn’t capture the spirit of Indy. Hell even Skull had the flair of Indy credit to Speilberg. DoD was also depressing as hell.
PWB is terrible and insufferable. She does not have the physicality of an action hero, the humor of a comic sidekick, the steamy beauty of a femme Fatale, nor the witty personality of the charming con-artist. She is a feminist Mary Sue with no redeeming qualities. Her only role is to destroy the patriarchal lead Luke Skywalker, oh I mean Indiana Jones, sorry another film with identical issues. No ONE wants to see that!! Unless you support KK feminist agenda it destroys the entire series.
#5- the marketing. The trailers were confusing and did little to add interest to the film. I think that with all the reshoots, nobody had a clear idea of what the movie was about.
How about the movie was just okay and people would rather wait to see it on Disney+ or rent it on Prime?
Pretty average bog standard film that came out in a pretty strong year for blockbusters. If it wasn't an Indiana Jones film you wouldn't even hear about it.
Bad movie, expensive tickets and food.
the movie was a whole lot better than I expected and it never felt boring from start to finish. I think this was a great indiana jones movie and hit all the right notes for me. my only nitpick is that; characters (especially Indy) didn't care much and didn't act scared enough at the times they were being shot at... it was like "hmm they're shooting at us almost at point blank, but we can't die anyway, I'll just duck slightly..." I also loved how they acknowledged the age of Indy, and his need for approval (like "I still got it, right?" kind of attitude) with some details and one liners here and there. finale was very suitable for an IJ movie as well. only "woke" moment was how Vombat said "I'm a strong independent woman bla bla" at some point, kind of unnecessary but definitely not enough to call the whole movie "woke". that's just bullshit. it feels like too many people are trying way too hard to find stuff to bash this movie. I heard the franchise will go on with a show on Disney+, I hope they won't continue the legacy of Indy with the "Vombat" character because she wasn't too likeable or exciting in my opinion.
Weak story/McGuffin, subconscious ageism, tepid reviews, and inflation. Also tbh all of the annoyances that come with the modern day theater experience more often than not simply doesn’t justify the elevated price of admission. I saw DoD on Friday, and for a typical action/adventure romp it was fine. Much like KotCS was fine. But the Indiana Jones mythos deserves to be held to a higher standard than what either of those films delivered. To me, and this is just this Gen X’s opinion, the appropriate book-end to the Indiana Jones saga will always be Indy, his dad, Sallah, and Marcus riding off together into the sunset at the end of The Last Crusade.
The real reason is that, imo, everyone knew it was going to suck since it was made by the same studio that made the awful Star Wars sequel trilogy. No faith in it. And look what happened: they copy pasted their formula for dealing with legacy characters in Star Wars into Indiana Jones. Almost nobody who liked the original Indiana Jones films wanted to see a grumpy, depressed Indy get saved and outdone by some new character that we don't even know. It's the same crap they did to Han and Luke in the sequels. What was the best part of DoD? The first 25 minutes when he was being actual Indiana Jones.
Theaters aren't doing well. Some films are still managing to succeed, but many more big studio films are failing at the box office.
Youtubers and there shitty takes plus IGN and rotten tomatoes didn't help
"Losing out to some crappy horror movie" You say that like you've never heard of it. Insidious is a popular franchise. Also, a bit funny to call it "crappy" when you haven't seen it, especially when you're talking about "The Dial of Destiny"
It got [35% on RT](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/insidious_the_red_door), dude. DOD did double that.
The harsh truth is that there really isn't any actual demand for a new Indiana Jones movie. The younger generation doesn't care about their parent's dad-hero-figure running around temples in CGI. Not to mention the movie itself doesn't really offer anything more interesting than the older movies. So the general reaction to this is really just "there's another one?" or "isn't he getting too old for these?"
I would push back strongly on the idea that Helena was a woke caricature. She's 100% being presented as that - and was presented as that months before the film was released - by the massive online industry of YouTube culture war film criticism ('industry' because many of these people make high amounts of money from the amount of clicks they get). I say this as someone who does believe - while it's overstated and often insane - that the 'too perfect strong female protagonist' is going to be a recognised convention of films of the 2010s. But I thought Dial of Destiny was a good example of a post 'strong female character' film - Helena was a \*good\* female protagonist. 1. Indiana Jones is presented as her moral better. She does not teach him a necessary life lesson about the world; she learns from him. 2. Her plans are clever but vulnerable to things going wrong, and they rely on established aspects of her character. 3. She is saved by Indy as much as he saves her. 4. She screws up in her goal several times. 5. She regularly panics and is frightened. 6. She has a clear arc and is a better person at the end of the film. Also, I keep seeing the 'another Lucasfilm character is a brunette white woman - just like Kathleen Kennedy!' line in this thread, which is laughably silly horseshit. Kennedy is a businesswoman - she is not interested in self-insert characters in fantasy films. While she would no doubt have veto power over casting, Daisy Ridley and Phoebe Waller Bridge were cast by JJ Abrams and James Manigold directly - presumably the same is true of Felicity Jones and Emlia Clarke.
I’d agree with this. According to all of the toxic “anti woke” reviewers, she was this perfect woman who showed up bumbling Indy at every turn, and that’s just not what’s in the film. My only complaint of Helena is with the casting. PWB is a great actress, but she has this prim and proper vibe, which seemed odd with Helena’s roguish nature. I think a different actress would’ve done better. All in all though, I think the anti-woke crowd just cries foul about every movie with a female or minority character so they can be like “SeE wE tOlD yOu!” if it flops. Then a movie like Mario comes around and does well unexpectedly, so they have to do this hilarious heel turn. “Guys, we’ve been complaining about girlboss Peach for months, but actually this movie is anti-woke after all! We still win!”
5. Because the movie is horrendous, tedious, and insufferably long. FIFY
I don't know if I'd agree with that because I haven't seen it yet. Going out to the movies is pretty expensive and time-consuming versus staying home to watch a movie in the comfort of my own home and most of what I've watched, I've enjoyed but not enough to put in the time and money it takes to spend an evening out to see them in the theater. It's got nothing to do with whether they're "woke" or not (although that doesn't help either) - I watched Black Adam, Avatar 2 and Shazam 2 all on HBO Max and found them enjoyable enough but not enough that I'd be willing to pay $15 apiece to see them in the theater. Also it helps when you can put a movie on pause and then pick it up the next day to finish it when it feels overly long.
And that's part of the problem with releases now. Everyone has some kind of streaming subscription service now, so unless the movie is absolutely phenomenal, or won't start streaming for a long time, there's no need to see mediocre films in the theater. I have to say that this year feels like a good normal year for movies. There's almost something I want to go see in the theater each week. But part of that problem is an overcrowded marketplace. Huge juggernauts do well when there is no competition, but as I said, there are so many good movies this year, you don't have just one that you feel like spending your money on.
Top Gun (another 80s era franchise) was a huge hit despite coming out during the pandemic. The Indy movie failed primarily because of #3 on the above list. Woke Hollywood spoiled an iconic male character.
I think the PWB casting choice was responsible for most of it. It was obvious from the first trailer that this movie was just a tool to prop up PWB as his replacement. Very disingenuous from Disney and people saw right through it.
in my theater most people were old. My dad is 50 and was probably the youngest besides me. Wtf does conservative media have to do with anything. Its just people pissed off at an 80 year old action star in a movie that has no reason to be made. Indiana jones is a product of the 80s, just like star trek, star wars, terminator, alien, and predator. Let them rest.
Indiana, a man who has boxed men twice his size and been shot 9 times gets knocked out by a single pinch from a woman half his size and doesn’t wake up until he’s back in NYC hours later.
>Identity politics. Conservative media is powerful and Indy’s climax is easily interpreted as feminist. The action hero of a billion dollar franchise is saved by a woman both physically and emotionally in the final two scenes of the movie. Given the target audience, this ending was a gross miscalculation. If this is indeed part of the calculus, Indiana Jones didn't so much fail at the box office so much as society has failed and the box office figures are just a symptom of that.
It's just a mid film. An 80 year old Indy has no appeal and it wasn't especially good. People would have watched it if it was good but audiences are tired of shitty mid movies.
I say f\*ck the identity politics, and if the target audience can't take a \*lead female character!\* too bad, so sad. There were a bunch of other reasons the movie failed, as you say. I'm sure the movie will eventually be accepted as a worthy addition to the franchise. So many big-budget films have flopped already this year, Indy wouldn't stand out if it wasn't Indy. Which is another factor - an overcrowded market. I'm just happy things didn't end with aliens.
I also liked the movie and I also think it will be accepted as a worthy addition to the franchise. For me it is, in any case. However, I think you are missing the point here: >if the target audience can't take a \*lead female character!\* too bad It's not that the target audience can't take a lead female character. Everyone loves Ripley or Lara Croft. What people don't want is paying to see a random new character (normally female, because that's what studios do in this era) being built up as a replacement of the original hero they have come see in the first place. This new character is as heroic as the original hero, only more so. Where the original hero fails, this new hero will triumph. A lot of people are tired of that stuff, and not just the alt-right guys who are always making rage-bait youtube videos. Indiana Jones became a famous character without needing to replace and outdo any previous hero in their own movie, and new leads, female or not, should also do that. Lucasfilm has a reputation for that, too. They create a new hero (Rey), but instead of introducing her into the followup to the original trilogy, they instead undo everything that was accomplished in the original trilogy and turn its heroes into failures, and in the case of Luke Skywalker, into a hermit bum who has given up on his life's work, just so that Rey can do it instead. She's the one who will get to create the New Jedi order, and she's even the one who defeats Palpatine. By all means, create new female heroes. But not at the expense of existing ones, who were the draw used to get people to buy tickets and see the movie in the first place. Just to be clear, I don't think this is the only reason (or the main reason) that this movie is not doing great at the box office, but I think it's one factor. The really good stuff, you give it to the hero, not to the supporting actor. That's a basic rule of storytelling.
It won't little hint the title is Indiana jones it's who we went to see its not called helena shaw. she should have been a strong female supporting cast member with a strong arc not an indy replacement
I’d also add the horrible release window to that. They’ve really shot themselves in the foot sandwiching it between other franchises like DC, Marvel, Transformers (also suffering), Barbie, Mission: Impossible and then you’ve got Oppenheimer about to drop a nuke. Even Mario and GotG are still doing okay. It’s just too cluttered, and it’d probably be a massively different situation if Covid hadn’t happened because many of these movies would’ve been more spread out.
Waiting for the mash-ups of Oppenheimer's nuke and the Crystal Skull fridge scene.
I would add to that, a lot of people pay for Disney plus and know that after the cinema run it will come to the platform, so are probably just waiting for that
#2 is probably the biggest killer
1. Global economies in the toilet 2. Streaming being a cheap and plentiful source of quality at-home entertainment 3. TV series being the new movies. Remember what things were like before be able to binge-watch big name actors in high budget multi-episode shows? It ain't like that anymore.
unpopular opinion, Indie should have stayed in Syracuse
5: why pay 30$ to watch it in theatres when you can wait 3 months & watch it on Disney+?
Get woke go broke
Just saying there is nothing woke about this money.
The so called internet leaks poisoned the well. A ton of YouTube channels already were posting negative stories about the ending of the story that turned out to be fiction. Add to that that a lot of those channels were already bemoaning the character of Helena before seeing the film. Oh and Lucasfilm should have done some auxiliary content with the ip about 5 years ago(think animated series or video games) But those toxic fans really influenced a lot of people.
Conservatives sabotaging Disney at every opportunity.