Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise’s respective film heroes are struggling to keep up with the times and their newer, uber-successful peers at the box office. Disney’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part One are reportedly on track to lose $100 million each, according to a report from Variety.
Indiana Jones 5 grossed $375 million six weeks after its release in theaters in late June, while Mission: Impossible 7 managed to rake in $523 million five weeks into its theatrical run. Both films made more money than it cost to produce them, but not enough to break even with their marketing expenses.
Sources familiar with both films’ finances told Variety they each cost roughly $300 million to make with about $100 million spent on marketing, making them the most expensive productions at their respective studios.
While both those movies stand to make more money on digital and streaming, that’s a longer game.
The movie industry at large still continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced theaters to close down and film studios to either delay the release date of their films or release their films on streaming platforms until it was safe enough for theaters to open back up. It also caused the budgets of many movies to rise, as they had to delay and/or implement necessary safety measures. Plus, more and more consumers have gotten used to watching movies at home.
But it isn’t all bad news at the box office: there’s also the explosion that is Barbenheimer, competition that may have hurt both Mission: Impossible and Indy. Barbie and Oppenheimer both opened on July 21, with the former now earning over $1 billion worldwide and the latter garnering nearly $650 million globally. The popularity of both films may have proved to be a death sentence for Mission: Impossible 7 because it opened a week and a half before they did. It also could’ve served as the final nail in the coffin for Indy 5, which premiered alongside Elemental at the Cannes Film Festival, an event that garnered negative buzz for both films (although Elemental has managed to rebound at the box office).
Cristina Alexander is a freelance writer for IGN. To paraphrase Calvin Harris, she wears her love for Sonic the Hedgehog on her sleeve like a big deal. Follow her on Twitter @SonicPrincess15.