Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny has disappointed in its opening weekend in North America, grossing an estimated $60m over the three-day period as it heads for $82m over the five-day July Fourth holiday weekend.
The Disney/Lucasfilm tentpole marking Harrison Ford’s fifth and final outing as the swashbuckling adventurer opened top of the domestic charts although in the lower range of projections – tracking had indicated around $65m – and also led global box office on $130m. Screen will post a full international report on Monday.
Playing in 4,600 theatres, this was a deflating debut heading into a critical July when Hollywood is looking to Indy and three other tentpoles – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part One, Barbie, and Oppenheimer – to turbo boost a blockbuster session that heading into the weekend trailed the same summer period in 2019 by approximately 15%.
Executives will hope the latest entry in the 42-year franchise, which reportedly cost $295m, holds through the week and beyond, although it will take a hit when Tom Cruise arrives on July 12 with the seventh Mission: Impossible instalment.
Notable final-gross benchmarks in the Indiana Jones series are the leader Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull from 2008 on $317.1m, and 1981’s Raiders Of The Lost Ark on an initial $212m and $248.1m factoring in re-releases.
Older audiences were the dominant age demographic with the over 54 crowd accounting for 21% of ticket sales, which makes sense given the franchise’s longevity and marked a pleasant change in expected behaviour – the older crowd is slower to turn up to see new films.
The 35-44 and 45-55 brackets accounted for 19% each, the 25-34-year-olds 17% and the 18-24 bracket 13%. There was a 59%-41% male-female split.
The film, directed by James Mangold and featuring Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas and franchise veterans Karen Allen and John Rhys-Davies, earned a lacklustre 68% on Rotten Tomatoes, a solid B+ CinemaScore rating, and four out of five stars from the general audience on PostTrak.
Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny is playing on virtually the entire Imax footprint of 401 screens in North America and the circuit accounted for 11% of overall box office, with an estimated 21% coming from all premium large formats.
In another disappointment, DreamWorks Animation’s family title Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken flopped on $5.2m from 3,400 venues and arrived in sixth place. Some of this may have been down to Disney/Pixar’s Elemental still being in play, however the performance is particularly dispiriting during the summer holidays and given that exhibitors have been crying out for more family films.
There was more good news for Sony as Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse fell to second place after a 39.5% drop on $11.5m for $339.9m after five weekends and consolidated its status as one of the hits of the summer.
Elemental fell 38.7% and ranks third on $11.3m for $88.8m after three sessions. It has been a big disappointment for the animation hit factor, whose films used to dominate until the pandemic forced former Disney CEO Bob Chapek to send Pixar releases straight to Disney+.
The prevailing view among box office observers is this may have trained families to wait it out until Pixar films arrive on streaming, even though the tentpole scored 92% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. Lightyear opened exclusively in theatres last year and finished on a lowly $118.3m – far from the likes of 2018’s Incredibles 2 on $608.6m, 2016’s Finding Dory on $486.3m, and 2019’s Toy Story 4 on $434m.
In fourth place Sony’s R-rated sex comedy No Hard Feelings with Jennifer Lawrence fell 50% in its second session, adding $7.5m for a mediocre $29.3m, while Paramount’s Transformers: Rise Of The Beast in fifth fell 40.4% in its fourth weekend on $7m for $136.1m, another lacklustre result at the North American box office.
Warner Bros/DC’s The Flash continues to inch towards $100m and has been a big flop. It fell 67% and five slots to number eight in its third weekend, adding $5m for $99.3m.
Focus Features’ Asteroid City, on the other hand, is playing nicely and brought in a further $3.8m after expanding in its third weekend by 226 theatres to 1,901. Wes Anderson’s latest slice of whimsy fell 58% and stands at $18.1m in ninth place.
Disney’s The Little Mermaid ranks seventh on a strong $280.9m after six sessions, while Marvel Studios summer hit Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 in tenth has amassed $354.9m after nine weekends.
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