Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a 2023 American action-adventure film directed by James Mangold, who co-wrote it with David Koepp and the writing team of Jez and John-Henry Butterworth. It is the fifth and final installment in the Indiana Jones film series and the sequel to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). It stars Harrison Ford, John Rhys-Davies, and Karen Allen reprising their roles as Indiana Jones, Sallah, and Marion Ravenwood, respectively, while new cast members include Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Ethann Isidore, and Mads Mikkelsen. Set in 1969, the film follows Indy and his estranged goddaughter, Helena, who are trying to locate a powerful artifact before Jürgen Voller, a Nazi-turned-NASA scientist, who plans to use it to alter the outcome of World War II.
Dial of Destiny is the only film in the series that is neither directed by Steven Spielberg nor conceived by George Lucas, with them both serving as executive producers instead. It is also the first film in the series not to be distributed by Paramount Pictures, following the Walt Disney Studios’ acquisition of Lucasfilm and film rights for future sequels. Paramount retains the distribution rights to the first four films and a residual associate credit.
Plans for a fifth Indiana Jones film date back to the late 1970s, when a deal was made with Paramount to produce four sequels to Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Lucas began researching potential plot devices for a fifth film in 2008, and Koepp was eventually hired to write the film in 2016. A release date was set for 2019, which was then delayed several times due to rewrites and the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018, Jonathan Kasdan replaced Koepp and eventually left the project. Spielberg was originally set to direct but stepped down in 2020, with Mangold taking his place. Filming began in June 2021 in various locations including the United Kingdom, Italy, and Morocco, wrapping in February 2022. Longtime franchise composer John Williams returned to compose and conduct the film’s score.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny premiered out of competition at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2023, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 30, by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Critics praised the film for Ford’s performance, noting that it helped bring the film some final bits of “cinematic treasure” but criticized the film for not being as thrilling as earlier installments. It grossed $384 million worldwide, becoming a box office bomb due to a lack of wide audience appeal and an expensive overall budget, with projections of a roughly $100 million loss for Disney.
