Indy’s Five Day Box-Office Adventure
May 27, 2008

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull didn’t break the all-time Memorial Day box-office record, but the highly anticipated action adventure did place second on the list, swinging ahead of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End with $126 million in receipts over the four day period. In other words… it made a ton of money even though it fell short of At World’s End by a surprising $13 million. Add the fifth day of the Memorial Day holiday to the cumulative totals and the new Indy hauled in $151 million, well short of the record set by Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, which raked in $173 million.

Although the excuses have already started to appear online, with several sources reporting that there’s been a downturn in attendance at the box-office in 2008, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull still resonated with cinematic adventure fans who were yearning to see Harrison Ford return as Indy in a fourth installment in the massively popular franchise. While a downturn might be true, worldwide totals saw Indy IV rack up $313 million in global box-office receipts in its first extended weekend, paving the way for what could turn into a billion in just a few short weeks.

The real news of it all: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was still a huge Memorial Day hit, as expected. One could argue that the new Indy didn’t bow in as many theatres as some of the other record holders, but you could also look at the release from several different angles. As seems to be the case with almost every big movie these days, the four and five day totals don’t fully and completely jive with the some of the online hype for the film. Judging by some online reports and predictions over the past couple of months, you would have thought Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was on track to make more money than all films in the history of cinema combined.

Although the new Indy didn’t do quite as well as we thought it would – and it still did amazingly well- we’re getting REALLY tired of the ongoing battle between fanboy excitement and grounded reality… and we’re cinematic fanboys, too. Could Kingdom of the Crystal Skull have set the holiday record? Sure. Should the new movie have set the record? No, nothing in Hollywood is a guarantee. Is it still going to make a ton of money? Absolutely. Were we hoping it would break some records? Sure. But now it’s over so we should all just enjoy the film as fans.

When all of the dust settled after the holiday, Iron Man still flew high with a $25 million four day total to Speed Racer’s $5.6 million.