I know we're all excited to go see "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," the fifth installment in the 40-year-old franchise and yet another beloved series that Disney is using to push a woke girlboss agenda while trashing and debasing the legacy characters that we all know and love.
Oh wait, we're not interested in seeing that? That's right. And apparently nobody else is either:
Disney spared no expense in bringing the film to the big screen, starting with a nearly $300 million production budget. Factor in marketing costs, which are typically equal to half the production budget, and a swanky premiere and after-party at the Cannes Film Festival, and "Dial of Destiny" has quite a hole to dig itself out of.
Box office analysts are predicting the film will capture between $60 million and $65 million during its first three days in theaters and around $90 million for the five-day holiday weekend.
That's right: Throw in those marketing costs and other odds and ends and you're looking at what could be close to a $500 million price tag for this thing. Half a billion dollars. That's a lot of money.
For a studio to recoup that kind of monstrous budget, the dang movie needs to hit the ground running. It needs to start sweeping the box offices on opening night. Heck, even 2008's boring, useless Indy installment "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" netted $100 million in its first three days.
"Dial of Destiny" looks set to capture barely two-thirds of that.
It's not hard to figure out why. People learned their lesson from "Crystal Skull." Nobody wants to sit through that kind of film again. They've also learned their lesson from Disney, which has spent years plundering much-loved movie franchises and turning them into dreck.
Anyone who watched the Star Wars films knows what to expect.
Don't be surprised to see "Dial of Destiny" become a humiliating box office flop for the company.
For comparison, the final good Indy film made — 1989's "Last Crusade" — netted a total of $197 million at the box office. When adjusted for inflation that's just under $500 million in today's dollars.
That was nearly 35 years ago. Marketing was much less ubiquitous. It was released in half as many theaters as "Dial of Destiny." And yet it still absolutely dominated at the box office in a way that this newest cruddy entry can barely aspire to.
