Did you see 'The Dial of Destiny' or pass?
Tuesday, July 4, 2023 at 11:14AM By Nathaniel R
The box office prelude to a mid-week Fourth of July (today) rested on Indiana Jones's 5th outing but he didn't truly deliver in The Dial of Destiny, a sequel that few people outside of Hollywood's money-obsessed board rooms were asking for. Hollywood is discovering that it can't live on franchises alone. Problem is that's become Hollywood's ONLY strategy and all they've been investing in for some time now. Unfortunately for those of us who love the cinematic experience audience increasingly lukewarm or chilly response to the big franchises isn't really morphinng into interest pointed at other moviegoing options. Hollywood has been training people to only care about franchises for years and now that they've "won", we're all losing!
| Weekend Box Office (estimates? actuals? it's always a little fuzzy around holidays) June 30th - July 2nd 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = Recommended |
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| WIDE (Over 800 Screens) | LIMITED / PLATFORM |
 INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY |
 EVERY BODY |
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1 🔺 INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY $60.3 *NEW* 4600 screens |
1 🔺 EVERY BODY [doc] $150k *NEW* 255 screens |
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2 ★ ELEMENTAL $12.1 (cum. $89.6) 3650 screens |
2 YOU HURT MY FEELINGS $45k (cum. $4.7) 68 screens |
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3 ★ SPIDER-MAN ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE $12 (cum. $340.3) 3405 screens
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3 🔺 THE CHILDE (South Korea) $42k *NEW* 194 screens |
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4 ★ NO HARD FEELINGS $7.8 (cum. $29.6) 3,208 screens |
4 IT AIN'T OVER [doc] $13k (cum. $665k) 30 screens |
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5 TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS $7.3 (cum. $136.4) 2852 screens |
5 THE LAST RIDER $12k (cum. $116k) 31 screens |
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6 🔺 RUBY GILMAN TEENAKE KRAKEN $5.5 *NEW* 3400 screens |
6 ★ BLUE JEAN (UK) $12k (cum. $79k) 27 screens |
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7 THE LITTLE MERMAID $5.3 (cum. $281.2) 2430 screens |
7 CLOSE TO VERMEER [doc] $11k (cum. $110K) 8 screens |
 PAST LIVES |
 DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY... |
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8 THE FLASH $5.2 (cum. $99.4) 2718 screens |
7 ★ DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY, AND MIDNIGHT COWBOYS $7k (cum. $24k) 10 screens |
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9 ★ ASTEROID CITY $4.2 (cum. $18.6) 1901 screens |
8 ★ REVOIR PARIS (France) $7k (cum. $21k) 3 screens |
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10 GUARDIANS VOL 3 $2 (cum. $355) 1165 screens |
9 SQUARING THE CIRCLE [doc] $5k (cum. $81k) 18 screens |
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11 THE BOOGEYMAN $1.8 (cum. $41.1) 1020 screens |
10 ★ SCARLET (Italy) $4k (cum. $56k) 7 screens |
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12 🔺 PAST LIVES $1.5 (cum. $5.8) 906 screens |
11 ★ SOMEWHERE IN QUEENS (US) $3k (cum. $1.7) 7 screens |
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13 THE BLACKENING $1.4 (cum. $15.4) 853 screens |
12 CHILE 76 (Chile) $2k (cum. $150k) 7 screens |
The Harrison Ford action sequel didn't even land the weekend's highest per-screen average count. That would be the restoration of Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt on just one screen in NYC. The big swing at the box office was the arthouse hit Past Lives expanding by 600+ screens to wide release where it placed just outside the top ten but with a decent per screen average. Can it continue to grow or is this it?
The animated comedy Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken had a shaky opening weekend but opening weekends don't always tell the tale with family films (which sometimes have oversized staying power).
The intersex documentary Every Body opened on a lot of screens for a doc and managed $150k. Will interest hold?
Next weekend - The buzzy raunchy girl trip comedy Joy Ride and the horror sequel Insidious: The Red Door both open in wide release. The Lesson an indie noir with Richard E Grant and Julie Delpy, an Italian film called Amanda, and the documentary The League about Baseball's 'Negro League' in the early 20th century, all open in limited release. Hot on their heels will be Tom Cruise's action-packed Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One which opens mid week (July 12th).
What did you watch this past week? I went to No Hard Feelings with friends and we laughed a loud. It was a comedy centric week as we also binged season 3 of The Other Two. At home we screened Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music doc (a must-see), and finally caught up with both A Thousand and One (strong) and Chevalier (middling). Last night, on a whim after a boozy birthday party for TFE's own Chris James, we randomly put on Book Club: The Next Chapter and lived to regret it.
Holidays, Indiana Jones, Past Lives, box office, sequels
Reader Comments (14)
I had a bit of a nostalgia viewing
The Fugitive Harrison Fords huge 93 box office hit,Tommy Lee Jones winning an Oscar,the b/f had never seen it,he was gripped.
Bugsy AKA When Annette met Warren,she is wonderful in it him less so,strange supporting actor nominations.
Opening Night a horror film masquarading as high drama,Rowlands and Blondell should have probably been Oscar nominated.
Outrageous 1977 Canadian gay themed drag drama starring Craig Russell,liked it a lot despite it's small world view.
The Late Show Lily Tomlin and Oscar thief Art Carney in dull detective comedy.
Burnt Offerings mid 70's perennial Karen Black and Bette Davis in supernatural horror,has atmosphere but drags.
Aliens I think more and more Weaver deserved her Oscar first time out,that bit in the lift is so energized yet fraught.
Didn't go to the movies this week - but I finally saw What's Up Doc on Criterion, a movie that's been on my list for years thanks to the constant advocacy at TFE.
AND IT'S A DELIGHT! Like a version of "Airplane!" for the people obsessed with Barbra and Madeline Kahn
I saw Dial of Destiny and it was perfectly fine. I think the best part was actually Harrison Ford who really seemed invested in it in a way I’ve never felt he was invested. But hopefully he’s officially done revisiting his older roles. Hopefully Witness 2 is not around the corner.
I also watched Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore and Dangerous Game on the Criterion Channel. Alice was thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end. Dangerous Game was complete torture and a total waste of everyone’s time including mine.
This is a bit of a roundup of the films I've seen the last few weeks:
* Spiderman: Across the Spider-verse--I really liked this but felt like it lacked some of the charm of the original. I found some of the multiverse stuff a bit confusing. Still, it's winning and the animation is spectacular.
* Past Lives--Exquisite! My favorite film so far this year, easily.
* Asteroid City--I run hot and cold on Wes Anderson, but I quite liked this one. Scarlett Johansson was the stand-out.
The tenth anniversary of the untimely death of James Gandolfini was June 19th. I revered the star of The Sopranos. When Enough Said was released a few months later, I just didn’t want to see his final effort. Now a decade later I watched his SAG nominated performance, He is perfect in the indie comedy, well matched with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Catherine Keener. Such a great actor!
Aside from a re-watch of Rocco and His Brothers on MUBI (great film). I saw Lovers Rock from the Small Axe anthology film series, a few shorts from the Miu Miu's Women's Tales series, a documentary short on Zoetrope Studios and it how fell apart, and a short by Aphichatpong Weerasethakul.
@Finbar, that is a celebrity death that still pains me. The Sopranos has always been my favorite show of all time and he was brilliant on it. While I could never bring myself to watch Enough Said, his film work in other things like In the Loop and Zero Dark Thirty are proof that he was so great in supporting roles and we really were robbed of so much by his way-too-soon passing. It’s also disturbing that it has already been 10 years. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s 10 year anniversary must be around the corner. Time is the real villain of life.
I saw Past Lives, which I loved, just like everyone else.
I think that the good word of mouth will make it a movie that people keep watching throughout the year, wherever they view it.
I keep thinking about it. Different parts come to mind, and it’s a pleasure to mull over them.
I just saw Past Lives. I really liked it though not as over the moon as everyone else.
Did a double feature of ASTEROID CITY (wonderful!) and NO HARD FEELINGS (funny!) on Saturday then saw a screening of EVERY BODY (very good!) on Sunday.
Can't wait to see JOY RIDE later this week.
The dial of destiny is so exciting. It brings a lot of new experience. The film tells about the storyline of the lover. I think we should watch it at least once in our life. spacebar clicker
Whether to turn "The Dial of Destiny" or pass is a profound choice that shapes one's life path.
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I saw Past Lives. I liked it but didn't love it. It was still well worth seeing though.
I also finally saw Saving Private Ryan, 25 years after its release. It was unsurprisingly excellent. And I watched a number of films on Criterion - Cane River and Living on Tokyo Time, which made a nice double feature in that they have all the pitfalls of early independent American films but were still tender and absorbing, and The Story of a Three-Day Pass, which should be talked about more - it was really fascinating and inventive; this must have been a big influence on Linklater. (The leads had so much charm, I definitely need to seek out more of their films as well as Melvin Van Peebles's other work.) Finally, I rented Showing Up, the only disappointment of the holiday weekend. I generally like Kelly Reichardt (I loved Certain Women), but I thought this was kind of dull and pointless.
Saw Asteroid City, which might be the worst Wes Anderson movie yet (meaning it is still 2x better than most of the garbage out there) - although the scene with the kids singing about the alien was maybe my favorite part of a movie in 2023.
I watched You Hurt My Feelings again ... and I hated it even more the second time. I can't explain it, but I just hated every single person in it. They were all so ridiculous. I don't get the love for this movie at all.