James Mangold is opening up about the mixed reaction to his 2023 blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Mangold, the acclaimed director behind Logan and Ford v Ferrari, was given the unenviable task (or enviable, depending on how masochistic you are) of closing out the beloved franchise and taking over from Steven Spielberg, and he faced the monumental challenge of delivering a satisfying finale for Harrison Ford’s iconic adventurer. While the film had its share of fans, that didn’t translate to bucks at the box office and the movie wasn’t exactly a glowing success with critics either.
Speaking to Deadline while on the promotional tour for his Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Mangold spoke quite openly about the disappointing response to the movie and was very candid about how there was a disconnect between audience expectations of an Indiana Jones movie with a star in his 80s, as well as his own personal sadness. When asked about how the audience reacted to the film, Mangold admitted it was a tough pill to swallow.
“You have a wonderful, brilliant actor who’s in his eighties. So I’m making a movie about this guy in his eighties, but his audience on one other level doesn’t want to confront their hero at that age. And I am like, I’m good with it. We made the movie. But the question is, how would anything have made the audience happy with that, other than having to start over again with a new guy?”
For Mangold, the experience of working on Dial of Destiny was a joyous one, particularly because of the chance to collaborate with Ford. However, seeing the audience’s reaction left him feeling conflicted. “It hurt in the sense that I really love Harrison and I wanted audiences to love him as he was and to accept that that’s part of what the movie has to say—that things come to an end, that’s part of life.”
Was ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ Bad?
Well, no, it wasn’t. Despite the mixed reviews, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny fared better with audiences than the much-maligned Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. According to Rotten Tomatoes, Dial of Destiny earned a 70% score from critics and an 87% score from audiences, which is significantly higher than Crystal Skull’s 53% audience score, but that just didn’t translate to the box office, as it remains the lowest-grossing entry in the franchise, bringing in $383.96 million worldwide, and losing around $130 million for Disney.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is streaming on Disney+.
Archaeologist Indiana Jones races against time to retrieve a legendary artifact that can change the course of history.
- Release Date
- June 30, 2023
- Runtime
- 142 minutes
- Writers
- Jon Kasdan , Philip Kaufman , David Koepp , George Lucas
Watch on Disney+
