Cost Of Making ‘Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny’ Passes $400 Million

‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ is one of the most expensive movies ever made ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Lucasfilm Ltd.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ended up being one of the most-expensive movies ever made as its costs came to $419 million (£320.1 million) according to filings recently released by Disney.

The movie cost over $100 million more than trade titles estimated making it one of the biggest gambles by Disney in recent years.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was released in 2023 and stars Harrison Ford as the eponymous ageing who is on a quest to track down an ancient artefact before it gets into the hands of the Nazis. The movie was the fifth instalment in the Indiana Jones franchise and whipped up a storm as its $384 million box office was far lower than that of its predecessors when adjusted for inflation and $35 million less than the production’s costs.

That’s despite the Dial of Destiny including several scenes featuring a de-aged Ford looking like he did in his prime when he played the character in the 1980s. This was thanks to groundbreaking technology developed by Disney’s visual effects division Industrial Light & Magic and it came at quite a cost.

The first indication of the bill for the film came in a report by this author in Britain’s Sunday Express newspaper back in November 2022. It was based on financial filings from Disney so there is no doubt about the accuracy of the data.

Despite being a globe-trotting adventure, Dial of Destiny was made in the United Kingdom and this shines a spotlight on its costs. Studios filming in the U.K. get a reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the money they spend in the country provided that at least 10% of their core costs are incurred there.

In order to demonstrate this to the authorities, studios set up separate companies to produce each film in the U.K. They are obliged to file legally-binding financial statements which are released in stages starting during pre-production and continuing long after the premiere to give the production team time to ensure that all the bills are paid.

The report in the Sunday Express revealed that by November 2022, more than $320 million (£240 million) had been spent on making the movie. This author then broke the news that a further $79 million (£62.6 million) had been spent on post-production work in the year to the start of April 2023.

The latest set of filings show that over the following year, $17.8 million (£14.1 million) was spent on the production bringing its total cost to precisely $419 million. It is a world away from the $300 million that Deadline claimed was spent on the production.

Although the cost of making Dial of Destiny was sky-high, the financial statements reveal that it was “in line with the production budget”. It doesn’t stop there.

Disney banked a $66.7 million (£50.3 million) reimbursement in return for filming Dial of Destiny in the U.K. This brought the Mouse’s net spending on the movie down to $352.3 million though even that wasn’t enough to give it a happy ending in theaters.

The amount that theaters pay to studios is known in the trade as a rental fee and an indication of the typical level comes from film industry consultant Stephen Follows who interviewed 1,235 film professionals in 2014 and concluded that, according to studios, theaters keep 49% of the takings on average.

This research lends weight to the widely-established 50-50 split which would give Disney just $192 million from Dial of Destiny and a $160.3 million loss at the box office after deducting the $352.3 million net spending on the movie.

The share of the box office isn’t the studio’s only return from a movie so offsetting it from the costs in the financial statements does not show whether it made a profit or a loss overall. As a Disney spokesperson told this author last year, “there will be other income generated by the production (such as DVD/Blu Ray sales, merchandising, etc.). It’s not reflecting a true account of whether the film was overall profitable.”

However, just as the production generates other income, it also incurs other costs, chief of which are the marketing expenses. Accordingly, if the home entertainment and merchandise sales should be added to the theater takings, the marketing cost should be deducted from them. It is believed that the marketing spend on Dial of Destiny far outweighed the home entertainment and merchandise income though Disney doesn’t disclose either amount for individual pictures.

It is understood that the vast majority of the spending on the film has now been booked in the financial statements so its estimated $160.3 million box office loss shouldn’t widen significantly. However, that doesn’t mean that the studio has given up on trying to recoup the loss it made on the movie.

A full reboot of Indiana Jones is reportedly under development and if that is a success the franchise may finally be able to whip up a profit for Disney.