Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Opening Weekend Box Office Fails to Impress

The fifth and final outing for Indiana Jones is getting off to a slow start, both at home and abroad. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Harrison Ford's last ride as the titular explorer, was released into theaters around the world this weekend, and it unfortunately delivered a little less than the initial projections had indicated. It's only been one weekend, but with such a massive budget, there was hope that Dial of Destiny would open just a bit stronger.

According to Deadline, Indiana Jones 5 took home around $70 million from 52 international markets over the weekend. When you combine that with the roughly $60 million it made here in North America, that puts the new Indiana Jones at $130 million globally after its first three days. Just last week, projections indicated Dial of Destiny could open at around $140 million.

The biggest international market for Dial of Destiny was the United Kingdom, where it earned just under $9 million. The film performed well in Europe, but struggled in other parts of the world.

Given its enormous budget, Dial of Destiny's opening weekend could be seen as a disappointing start that will be difficult to overcome. That may end up being true, especially in the wake of what happened to The Flash, but there has also been multiple examples just this year of movies making big gains over the course of several weeks. Box office totals aren't quite as front-loaded as they used to be, and that could be to Indy's advantage. Perhaps it will follow the pattern of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, steadily earning its money week after week, eventually becoming a box office hit. Patience will be a virtue for this one.

Indiana Jones Ending With Dial of Destiny

The fifth installment of the Indiana Jones saga is meant to be its last. Harrison Ford is the only actor to have played the titular character in feature films over the years, and there are no plans to recast Indy in order to make more movies. At 80 years old, Ford as made it clear that he's not planning to play Indiana Jones again. 

While this will be the final installment of the Indiana Jones series, director James Mangold made a point not to indicate as much with the title. Since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade already included a word hinting at an ending, Mangold and the production team had a rule against using that terminology.

"Because Last Crusade. You couldn't say last because Last Crusade did it and wasn't," Mangold explained during a recent interview with Uproxx. "'Final' is in every movie from Halloween. Every movie has, at least, the 17th installment called 'Final' something. So you think, you can't go 'final.'"

The iconic Harrison Ford returns for one last adventure when Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny premieres in theaters on June 30th. Lucasfilm's latest film in the long-running franchise sees Dr. Jones team up with his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) in a race against nefarious forces to secure a powerful artifact. The duo will go up against the mysterious former Nazi-turned-NASA scientist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), and the film also features stars Boyd Holbrook, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, and John Rhys Davies. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is directed by James Mangold and is set to be Ford's final appearance as the iconic archeologist.