Is There an Indy for Our Generation?

As we exited the theater where we had just seen the IMAX version of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, a special one-week run to promote yesterday's release of the complete Indiana Jones series on Blu-Ray, my friend Rohit posed an intriguing question.  “Does our generation have a movie like that?”  In the last decade, had there been a film that could match its explosive popularity?

My first instinct was to take a look at the numbers.  During its initial run in 1981, plus re-releases in the two subsequent years, Raiders earned over $242 million at the domestic box office, making it the 75th highest-grossing film of all time.  This seems anemic when compared to a contemporary hit like Marvel’s The Avengers (Joss Whedon), which raked in $207 million in its opening weekend alone en route to a total of over $621 million.

But raw dollars provide an inferior way to compare films that were released decades apart.  Ticket prices, like any other commodity, are subject to the forces of inflation and any legitimate comparison must take this into account.  Translated into 2012 dollars Raiders’ adjusted domestic gross is over $706 million, which is nineteenth all-time.  Since its release merely six films have surpassed it and only one of these – James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) – came out in the twenty-first century.

Hollywood isn’t necessarily putting out a product that’s vastly inferior to its older films (a complaint that I hear from audiences of all ages).  Of course there is a good share of crap, but if we look back through cinematic history we find that that’s always been the case. So why is it so difficult for more recent films to rack up gaudy box office numbers?  

It has to do in part with the accessibility of home theater systems (a concept that was, until recently, reserved for the wealthy) which mimic the cinematic experience in the comfort of one’s own living room.  And of course the advances in cable, satellite, and streaming services have given us access to a massive selection of channels and on-demand content.  There’s less of an incentive to actually go see a movie at the theater when there is all this entertainment available anytime the mood strikes.

However, people don’t seem to be shutting themselves inside with their flat screens; going to the movies is still an American pastime.  Compared to 1981, twenty percent more tickets were sold in 2011.  But whereas 1981 saw 173 movies get released, in 2011 there were 601 releases.    

The sheer volume of movies coming out in theaters has made it an arduous task for contemporary films to rival the all-time greats.   Movies with broad appeal just aren’t getting made anymore.  Market segmentation is the norm, and films are mostly tailor-made to attract particular demographics.

In my generation, there are a few blockbuster films that could contend with the appeal, drawing power, and sheer quality of Raiders.  Peter Jackson’s epic Lord of the Rings trilogy earned a Best Picture Oscar for its final installment.  The Harry Potter series maintained impressively high standards across eight films.  And with his Batman trilogy, Christopher Nolan elevated the superhero film to an art form.         

Taking nothing away from their artistic and aesthetic value, these films are all based on well-established, already popular stories from comic books and literature.  Fans of the source material want to see how Hollywood will interpret the characters they have loved for years, if not decades.  And bingo, there’s the built-in audience I mentioned before.  It’s become a safer financial bet for studios to rely on recognizable characters rather than creating films that are genuinely original. 

That isn’t to say that Raiders came out of a vacuum; George Lucas and Steven Spielberg admittedly were inspired by classic cinema.  But their genius lied in their ability to resurrect the thrilling elements of the 1930s and 40s film serials and combine them with the dazzling techniques of modern moviemaking in an original way.  

Their film also spoke to multiple generations.  Older viewers who fondly recalled weekend afternoons spent in movie houses would come for the nostalgia, and their younger counterparts would line up to see Harrison Ford, who was fast becoming one of the biggest superstars of the 1980s.  And, let's face it, who doesn't want to see Nazis get the snot kicked out of them?  The combination of these elements made for an unforgettable cinematic experience.  Quite simply, one cannot ask for anything more out of a movie.  

When I consider the films that I grew up with in the 2000s decade I'm reminded of Marcus Brody, who has just informed Indy that he'll be sent to find the Ark of the Covenant.  "Nothing else has come close," he says.  And indeed, Raiders of the Lost Ark has a universal appeal that hasn't been approached by any film since, and certainly none from my generation.


(Box office data obtained from boxofficemojo.com)