Indiana Jones: the crazy figures of the saga with a huge budget

Cinema’s most famous archaeologist sets out on an adventure. With the theatrical release of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”, directed by James Mangold, a new chapter is added to the saga which began in 1981 and whose first four films were directed by Steven Spielberg.

But Indiana Jones is not just about the success of its feature films. The universe imagined by George Lucas also comes to life in a television series called “The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones”, television films, several video games, or even in the comics “The further adventures of Indiana jones”, which Marvel has started published in 1983.

During the filming of this fifth part, Harrison Ford dons the Indiana Jones costume for the last time. But the franchise could take a facelift in the event of a new big success. Disney, which co-produced the film with LucasFilm, would have mentioned the possibility of a series. Overview of the most significant figures of the saga.

Nearly $2 billion in cumulative revenue

In total, the four films registered $1.9 billion in admissions worldwide. Indiana Jones has enjoyed increasing success over the years. The fourth film, released 27 years after the first part of the saga, is the most successful, generating more than 790.6 million dollars alone, thus climbing to the 93rd place of the most profitable film. of the world. This is much more than the third, which generated 474 million dollars, while the first two record less than 400 million.

Nearly $300 million budget for a single film

The budgets enjoyed by the films are also exponential. If the first film cost 18 million dollars, this budget rose to 28 million, then 48 million, before exploding in 2008: some 185 million dollars were devoted to “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” . This partly explains its success in theaters.

The fifth film confirms the exponential nature of this budget: according to Forbes, it would have cost some 294.7 million dollars, the eighth most expensive film of all time. By way of comparison, the most expensive of all the Pirates of the Caribbean films benefited in 2007 from a budget of 300 million dollars.

42 years: the time elapsed between the first and the last part

The longevity of the series, which allows it to reach several generations, is one of the explanations for this growing success. The theatrical release of “Dial of Destiny” comes 42 years after the very first Indiana Jones film, in 1981, and 15 years after the fourth film, released in 2008. Indiana Jones fans are used to a such expectation: 20 years had ped between the “Last Crusade” (1989) and the “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008).

A month before the release of the latter, Harrison Ford had also ensured that such a delay would not happen again, saying that he was ready to interpret Indiana Jones in a fifth film, provided that it was released. in less than 20 years. This fifth film very probably closes the saga at the cinema. “Indiana Jones, it’s me. When I leave, he leaves, ”ured Harrison Ford in 2019.