Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny should have been a hit. This is one of the most revered franchises in cinematic history, comes from a director with a string of critically acclaimed projects, and boasts bona fide screen legend Harrison Ford cracking the whip one last time. But sadly, it seems that opening weekend audiences simply weren’t interested.
Dial of Destiny debuted to a disappointing $60 million domestic opening weekend and also cratered overseas at a paltry $130 million. When all’s said and done, Disney could lose as much as $200 million on the movie, making it one of the biggest box office bombs of all time.
The post-mortem on why is going to take a while, though some believe that it’s simply down to ageism. Is the 80-year-old Harrison Ford just too old to front a summer action blockbuster?
The replies point out that anyone criticizing Ford for being old would be lucky to look this good at 80. Another take is that if an octogenarian is suffering ageism while helming a summer blockbuster, looking good, and holding his own in action sequences – what chance do the rest of us regular Joes and Janes have when we reach that age?
All that said, perhaps Dial of Destiny simply doesn’t appeal to a younger demographic. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is now 15 years old and wasn’t great, meaning the last genuinely good Indy movie was The Last Crusade way back in 1989. Maybe the twin failures of Dial of Destiny and The Flash‘s returning Michael Keaton Batman indicate the 1980s nostalgia well has finally run dry.