The state of Disney’s box office health is currently under a microscope now that Elemental has added its name to the growing number of movies losing the company money instead of making it some. As a result, an upcoming MCU sequel a portion of the fandom will undoubtedly hate has been deemed the company’s box office savior. If it can match its predecessor, it’ll be fine, but the MCU’s recent slate of films has resulted in cautious optimism.
Meanwhile, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is just a few days away from its theatrical release, meaning the hype train needs to start chugging overtime if the film has any hope of combating those poor early reviews. But hey, at least you can count on Harrison Ford doing his own stunts. The man’s 80 years old; poor reviews or not, he deserves some claps for that.
With reportedly close to a billion dollars in the tank, all eyes are on Carol Danvers and co. to save the day
Yes, you read that correctly. According to a box office analyst, Disney has lost nearly a billion dollars at the box office over the last seven studio projects, which include MCU films like Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Despite their box office numbers, the analyst claims these films and more have actually resulted in monetary losses for the House of Mouse. Needless to say, Disney really needs The Marvels to follow in its predecessors’ footsteps and cross that billion-dollar threshold at the box office.
This isn’t the first time Disney has tanked this hard (or this long) at the box office
Once is bad enough, but it turns out that Disney has been in this position before. Between 2010 and 2013 the company saw negative returns from films like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and Tron: Legacy, not to mention John Carter. All these films and more indicate that history is indeed repeating itself. Sadly, if you’re holding out hope that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will save the day, the opposite has been projected to happen.
Harrison Ford says he’s having “more fun than I really should” in a new featurette, but will that be enough to save Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny?
In a newly-released featurette for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, audiences are reassured that the action adventure they came to love in the previous films will not take a backseat in this one, regardless of Harrison Ford’s age. What’s more, the reliance on CGI that Marvel has been criticized for does not seem to have followed Disney into Indy’s adventure.
“Our goal was to do as much as we could for real,” said writer and director James Mangold. “Harrison wants things to be real,” confirmed producer Kathleen Kennedy. In this case, “real” also means doing your own stunts. According to Mangold, not even tough, painful stunts could stop Ford who, to reiterate, is now 80 years old. “It’s gonna hurt, but he’s gonna do it anyway,” he said.
It remains to be seen whether nostalgia mixed with action-packed adventure and real stunt work will be enough to get moviegoers off their couches and into movie theater seats. At this time, early reviews suggest the movie will add itself to the growing number of box office bombs plaguing Disney at present. However, if anyone can turn things around, it’s Indy.
All we can really hope for is that any CGI Disney uses to render a younger Harrison Ford is better than what Warner Bros. gave us with The Flash. Please, anything but that.
Published: Jun 26, 2023 07:00 pm