My Oscar Book:

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal the Captain America: Brave New World actor looked back on the lackluster performance at the box office to the fifth and final installment in the series.

Following its 2023 release, the film opened to underwhelming $60.4 million at the domestic box office which wasn’t as successful compared to the previous four Indiana films.

“Shit happens,” Ford told WSJ of the response to the film. “I was really the one who felt there was another story to tell. When Indy had suffered the consequences of the life that he had to live, I wanted one more chance to pick him up and shake the dust off his ass and stick him out there, bereft of some of his vigor, to see what happened.”

Despite the film not being successful Ford said, “I’m still happy I made that movie.”

James Mangold directed the film and developed the script for Dial of Destiny.

When discussing working with Mangold versus Spielberg, Ford said: “I knew what we were getting when we were going in that direction. But Steven’s still on the picture and has always been on the picture. He’s not the director this time, but he’s intimately involved.”

Ford also said he loved that audiences were meeting Jones “at a different point in his life to where we’ve seen him in these other films. It’s logical place for him to be at this stage, considering his behavior and what he spent his time doing.”

When looking back on how critics were “harsh” at the time on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which also starred Shia LaBeouf, Ford said given critics “were imposing their rules on what the movie should be” he didn’t deem it necessary to address them. “I think that everyone has a right to their opinion. The film was not as successful as we wanted it to be. But it didn’t create an attitude or a behavior that carried over into this film,” he said.

Ford said he signed on to the film despite not seeing a script. “I saw enough Marvels to see actors that I admired having a good time,” he told WSJ. He also quipped of his role as the Red Hulk, “I didn’t really know that at the end I would turn into the Red Hulk.”

“It’s like life,” Ford added. “You only get so far in the kit until the last page of the instructions is missing.”