Lucasfilm Plans Indiana Jones Reboot After Embarrassing $329M Flop
According to a new report from The DisInsider — the same outlet that broke The Incredibles 3 scoop before Disney made it official — Lucasfilm is prepping a full reboot of the Indiana Jones franchise.
Not immediately, of course. The current plan is to let the brand "rest for a bit" before launching a fresh take, with a potential announcement landing as early as D23 2025. Translation: they're giving it just enough breathing room to pretend they're not rushing it.
This comes less than a year after Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny quietly cratered at the box office. With a bloated $329 million production budget and a global gross of just $384 million, Disney reportedly lost $134 million on the film (via Forbes). That's a long fall from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which made over $790 million in 2008 — and people hated that one too.
Director James Mangold has chalked some of the failure up to audiences being reluctant to watch an 81-year-old Harrison Ford put the fedora back on. Which, fair. Ford has now officially retired the role, and Disney has walked away from earlier ideas like a Phoebe Waller-Bridge spinoff or Chris Pratt donning the hat.
For now, it looks like Disney is doing the one thing it rarely does: exercising restraint. But don't mistake that for good judgment — a reboot is still on the table. It just won't involve Ford, which raises the obvious question: who actually wants this?
Plenty of fans online are already sharpening their knives. One comment sums it up:
"Disney must be stopped. This, POTC, enough. Jones simply isn't a character for modern times... He isn't Spider-Man — you can't just recast him."
Another:
"It belongs in a museum. Not the multiplex or Disney+. And that's saying something, since I might be the only person on Earth who enjoyed Dial of Destiny."
Others floated alternate ideas — an animated reboot, a pulp-inspired series, even a Young Indiana Jones revival. But the general mood was clear: "Don't do this."
At this point, video games like The Great Circle and Fate of Atlantis have done more to keep the franchise alive than the movies themselves. But as long as there's nostalgia left to mine and merchandising deals to sign, Disney's probably not going to let Indy stay buried.
Get ready for the reboot. Whether you want it or not.