Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny debuted to mixed reviews and a “Rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes, but its score has slowly gone up, becoming Fresh in time for its wide theatrical release. While the trend may be for blockbusters to see a decline in their Rotten Tomatoes score after their debut, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is doing the exact opposite, largely because of Disney and Lucasfilm’s release strategy to debut the movie at Cannes Film Festival.
As the fifth theatrical installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny brings back Harrison Ford for one last hurrah as the titular character. Indiana Jones is one of the most popular characters and film history, and the franchise, so far, has maintained a perfect record in Rotten Tomatoes, with every movie earning a fresh score, even including Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, despite earning a Rotten score from audiences. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny looks like it’ll maintain that streak, although its initial debut Rotten Tomatoes score was far lower.
Why Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Debuted to a Rotten Score on Rotten Tomatoes
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny first screened for critics on May 18th at the Cannes Film Festival and debuted at 52 percent on Rotten Tomatoes shortly after. Disney’s decision to hold a Cannes premiere for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was likely a strategy to give the movie a more prestigious release and generate early buzz, but the choice clearly backfired with the first Rotten score for the Indiana Jones franchise.
Blockbusters like Top Gun: Maverick seeing huge success from a Cannes debut and Indiana Jones movies are historically well reviewed, but the decision to premiere at Cannes was still a big risk. The previous Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull earned 77 percent on Rotten Tomatoes in 2008, but a closer look at the score reveals a huge split with Rotten Tomatoes specially selected “Top Critics” scored it a full 10 percent lower at 66 percent. Since critics at Cannes primarily consist of Top Critics, a debut there doesn’t start with the movie’s best foot forward.
How Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Went Up So Much
While Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny debuted to a Rotten Score, there were only 14 negative reviews logged at the time, 12 of which were submitted by Top Critics. Since most blockbusters receive hundreds of total reviews, and Top Critics only account for a fraction of those reviews, the composition of the post-Cannes 52 percent score was in no way representative of the final score. In fact, excluding the Top Critic reviews from the post-Cannes score, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny‘s Rotten Tomatoes score was actually closer to 80 percent.
With reviews flooding in for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’s wide theatrical release, the score has already flipped to a Fresh status, climbing to 67 percent, and could go even higher. Despite the Fresh score from all Rotten Tomatoes critics, it still has a Rotten 55 percent score from Top Critics, who make up just 56 of the current 209 reviews submitted and 25 of 70 Rotten reviews. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skill had 308 total reviews submitted in 2008, and the site has grown even bigger since then, so Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’s Rotten Tomatoes score could go even higher.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Has The Opposite Rotten Tomatoes Problem From Other Recent Blockbusters
Ironically, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny‘s Rotten Tomatoes score going up is the exact opposite of the trend seen with many other big blockbuster movies in recent years. There’s been a strong trend of movies seeing significant drop-off from their debut scores, sometimes even losing their Certified Fresh status or flipping to a Rotten score altogether. For example, in one of the most egregious examples, in December 2020, Wonder Woman 1984 debuted at 88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes before dropping precipitously to 58 percent where it stands today.
The reason most movies debut high and then drop is ironically similar to the reason for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny‘s Rotten Tomatoes change. Most studios use a release strategy that puts their best foot forward by debuting their movies to the audience most predisposed to give it positive early buzz, meaning the earlier reviews tend to tilt more positive while later reviews tilt negative and bring the score down slightly. By debuting at Cannes, Disney hoped Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny would get an early stamp of approval, but instead, the Top Critics panned it when the strategy backfired.
How high will Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’s Rotten Tomatoes Score Go?
The Rotten Tomatoes score for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny has already gone up 14 points from 52 percent to 66 percent, so will it keep going up, and how high could it go? That depends on a few factors, but the calculation is very simple. Currently, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny‘s 66 percent Rotten Tomatoes score is achieved because 149 of the 225 reviews submitted were marked as Fresh as of the time of this article’s publishing. 149 is 66 percent of 225. The past 100 reviews submitted averaged 70 percent, so if that trend remains consistent, then the movie will cap out at around 68 percent anywhere north of 340 total reviews.
It’ll need well over 500 reviews to move the needle anymore if it maintains an average of 70% for the remaining reviews, but if, hypothetically, it began trending at 75 percent, then the score could reach 70 percent overall so long as it received more than 360 reviews. Conversely, if the average trend drops to around 68 percent, then the overall score will reach a maximum 67 percent anywhere north of 267 total reviews submitted. The most likely outcome is the score will end up at 68 percent with at least 340 overall reviews based on current trends.
While Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny‘s Cannes Film Festival release strategy may have backfired, resulting in an initially Rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes for the weeks leading up to release, the influx of reviews from the larger pool of Rotten Tomatoes critics has brought it up significantly into Fresh territory. While the score could keep going up, it likely won’t go any higher than 70 percent, which still makes it the lowest-scoring Indiana Jones movie on Rotten Tomatoes.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
