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Indiana Jones left the 1980’s with a (financial) bang

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11 Jan 2022
5 min read
Question: the world's highest-grossing film from 1989 at over $474 million in global tickets sales in was...

Following the gory depths of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, director Stephen Spielberg closed out the “Indy” franchise in the 1980’s with a return to the roots of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

And both audiences and critics took ample notice of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in what is revered among the most engaging and entertaining films of the past fifty years.

Set in 1938, Indy’s hunt for his captured father, Henry Jones, Sr., the adventure leads the father-son tandem through Nazi-occupied/terrorized Europe en route to a search for the Holy Grail.

Casting and writing were cornerstone for the movie’s success.  

With River Phoenix hand-picked by Harrison Ford to play young Indy for the film’s opening sequence (moviegoers will recall the two worked together on The Mosquito Coast three years’ prior), and co-starring Sean Connery as the elder Jones (despite that fact that the screen legend was just a dozen years’ Ford’s senior; the men were 59 and 47-year-old at the time, respectively), the all-star cast presented much of what Doom never achieved.

Said Spielberg of the second movie in the Indy franchise:

“I wasn't happy with the second film at all. It was too dark, too subterranean, and much too horrific. I thought it out-poltered Poltergeist. There's not an ounce of my own personal feeling in Temple of Doom."

Additionally, the smart, playful dialogue of Crusade, along with the stellar on-screen rapport between Ford and Connery, didn’t happen by mere accident.  Rather, Tom Stoppard, celebrated British playwright and screenwriter, penned much of the exchanges for the Jones’ boys, though his contribution went uncredited.

Released on a Wednesday, Crusade nearly broke an opening-day record, grossing $5.6 million, second only, at the time, to the debut day record of $6.2 million taken in by Return of the Jedi five years’ previous.  

Cumulatively, Crusade -- which was made with a budget of $48 million – had a monster ticket haul taking in nearly $475 worldwide in ’89, which was most earnings for a movie that year, and about $120 million more than 1988 worldwide sales leader, Rain Man, had earned.

Come 2008, in a fourth installment in the series, Indy (and a 64-year-old Ford) returned to the silver screen with Indiana Jones and theKingdom of the Crystal Skill, which, despite a worldwide box office take of over $790 million, inspired few to believe the franchise had achieved any improvement from its stellar predecessor.  For another crack at it, however, a long-awaited fifth Indy film (as yet untitled) featuring the Spielberg-Ford tandem is slated for release in the summer of 2023.

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