Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny whips up over $7.2 million for the Thursday night previews

The esteemed professor and archeologist Henry Jones Jr., known to many as Indiana Jones, has embarked on his final adventure, and Harrison Ford has been candid with his emotions throughout the lead-up to the Dial of Destiny release. The day has finally arrived, and the numbers are coming in for the Thursday night previews. According to Deadline, Disney and Lucasfilm are looking at an estimated $6 million to $7.5 million in early screening ticket totals (UPDATE – the total came in at $7.2 million).

The $6 million to $7 million range is comparable to other Thursday preview totals for films that feature legacy action characters, such as Daniel Craig’s last outing as Agent 007, James Bond in No Time to Die, which brought in $6.3 million with a 4 p.m. Thursday start time, and Tom Cruise’s last Ethan Hunt adventure, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which ushered in $6 million on the Thursday before it took in a total of $61.2 million over its debut weekend. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny started its run at 3 p.m. and has been projected to come in at around $60 million – $65 million at 4,500 theaters. This makes it “the second-highest stateside opening for the Steven Spielberg-George Lucas franchise after 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which posted a five-day opening of $151.9M, after a 3-day of $100.1M. Crystal Skull didn’t have previews but opened fully on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend with $25M at 4,260 theaters.” It is also expected to reach about $140 million globally.

The projections for this entry fall short of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The talk around this sequel had been divisive since the premiere at Cannes a few weeks ago. The early reviews coming out of the Cannes screening slowly gave the film the lowest critics’ score in the series, which has ultimately topped out at 66%. RelishMix explains the social media reception of the swan song for Ford’s iconic character, “Chatter on Indy 5 runs mixed-leaning-positive with fans who think ‘this will be a masterpiece, filled with heart-pounding action’ and that Ford as Indy will be missed as one the best heroes ever — along with adoration for John Williams’ historic contribution and career. Plus, there’s excitement for James Mangold at the helm as fans talk about their lives over the 39 years [of the] franchise and wish there had been more episodes. Hecklers are taking pot shots at everything from the story, throwback elements and cliché comments about sequels, but are nowhere as loud as lovers of the franchise.”