Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Adjusted Gross

So, Harrison Ford has made it official: "I'm not falling down for you again." This was his announcement after the initial trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie was screened for an audience at the D23 Expo this past weekend. 
I know. You're probably trying to untangle this whole "new Indiana Jones movie" phrase. Really? The last time Mister Ford pulled no the leather jacket and fedora was in 2008. Fourteen years ago. Twenty-seven years after the initial entry into the swashbuckling archaeologist saga. 
And the math that matters is this: Harrison Ford is eighty years old. Back in 2008 when everyone's favorite snake-hater went in search of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, there were those who suggested that Harrison might have been a little long in the tooth to be chasing all over the globe for antiquities. 
I would have been one of those suggesting that. 
I was also of the opinion that the creative team behind all these adventures may have been just a little desperate for assistance themselves. I point directly to the sequence in which Indy escaped being blown up by an atom bomb by hiding innside a refrigerator. If you are among those who stayed away from screenings of this episode, let me assure you that it really happened and it may not have been the most ridiculous thing that happened over the course of the film. Maybe if Doctor Jones had woken up at the end of this mess only to discover that it hall been some sort of crazy dream. 
Tongue in cheek? Ironic? Too clever? Perhaps. But it made seven hundred ninety million dollars at the box office. That was almost twice what the third installment, the one with Sean Connery, made. That one was made when Harrison Ford was forty-six years old. So, if you're trying to calculate the amount each movie made compared to the relative age of its star, this may not be encouraging. At least not if you are no longer interesting falling down for us anymore. 

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