I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 in the movie theaters, when I was 9, in the days that I didn’t go to the movie theaters often. The same year as Superman II. I didn’t see any of the other Indiana Jones movies in the theaters, either. I eventually caught up with them.
I was super excited to see Dial of Destiny in the theaters because the trailer looked great. I did see it the second week it was open, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It looks like this Disney production that cost close to $300 million will be a huge flop. This should come as a shock to no one because unlike Star Wars and Star Trek or a superhero movie or James Bond, Indiana Jones is intellectual property that hasn’t truly engaged audiences in the past 15 years since Crystal Skull was released. To keep on mining audiences for a never-ending loop of sequels, you need content to continue a grip on the audience. That could be movies, that could be a streaming show or even comic books. Indiana Jones failed to do that, and that’s the simple reason why it flopped.
