By James Mangold’s currently out there promoting his Timothee Chalamet-led Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” his first film since last year’s “Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny” launched to mixed reviews and disappointing box-office.
That fifth and final “Indiana Jones” film grossed a disappointing $384 million worldwide from a budget said to be around $329 million – racking up over $130 million in losses for Disney. Its box-office haul was just half of what 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” pulled in.
Looking back on why the film failed, Mangold tells Deadline that he puts it down to audiences not wanting to see their hero as an 81-year-old man:
“You have a wonderful, brilliant actor who’s in his eighties. So I’m making a movie about this guy in his eighties, but his audience on one other level doesn’t want to confront their hero at that age. And I am like, I’m good with it. We made the movie. But the question is, how would anything have made the audience happy with that, other than having to start over again with a new guy?”
Mangold says he’s still proud of the movie, calling it a “joyous experience, but it hurt” in terms of the reaction from critics and audiences. He adds that he “really wanted audiences to love [Ford] as he was and to accept that that’s part of what the movie has to say – that things come to an end, that’s part of life.”
As for what’s next for Mangold, he’s not sure. Offering an update on his “Star Wars” film “Dawn of the Jedi,” he says: “My partner and I have been writing it. I don’t know what’s next because we haven’t gotten to the end of that process… we’re trying to finish a draft.”
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