Will Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny be a hit or flop? Here’s what the data suggests

Disney spent $295 million to bring Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny to the big screen starting this weekend — a pretty staggering budget for what amounts to a fourth sequel to a 42-year-old movie franchise. Needless to say, for that and so many other reasons, there’s a lot riding on how Indy’s return performs at the box office following its June 30 release date.

This latest sequel represents, among other things, not only Harrison Ford’s final performance in the title role. It’s also the first of the movies directed by someone other than Steven Spielberg. Plus, the franchise remains key enough for Disney that it’s reportedly planning to make an Indiana Jones TV show for Disney+.

Early reviews of the new movie, however, haven’t been promising. As a result of Disney deciding to let the movie get an out-of-competition screening at Cannes this year, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was stuck with an early crop of bad reviews for more than a month — quickly earning itself a “Rotten” status on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 51% critics’ score, though that score has since ticked up to “Fresh” status with a 67% critics’ score.

Maybe the weight of expectation played an outsized role in how critics approached the story this time around. At any rate, there’s reason to be a bit more optimistic now as we get closer to the movie’s release date in theaters — starting with, for example, the $65 million that the film is targeting from 4,500 North American theaters this weekend. When you add in the movie’s $80 estimated initial haul from the international box office, that amounts to a pretty solid start of $145 million. Still, though, Disney needs a lot more Indiana Jones fans to buy tickets to get the movie into the black during its theatrical run thanks to the huge budget and marketing spend.

But who knows; maybe it’ll get there. Fresh Indiana Jones data from IMDb, at least, looks at least a little encouraging — thanks in part to the movie database naming the film its #4 most anticipated movie of this summer. That’s based on IMDbPro’s MOVIEmeter rankings, which look at page views to a movie’s IMDb listing and which are updated weekly throughout the year.