10 Costly Mistakes That Doomed Great Movie Franchises

After years of jaw-dropping practical set-pieces and stunts, Steven Spielberg and most recently James Mangold's willingness to take Indiana Jones' adventures down a more digital path has definitely taken something away from the fun.

Admittedly, seeing a young Jones be brought to life via de-ageing tech in The Dial of Destiny was somewhat impressive at points. But that heavily CGI'd Harrison Ford - and many of the other moments that required an older Ford's mug to be digitally slapped onto a stunt double - still felt like they didn't belong in the same cherished series that boasts iconic boulder sequences and Jones chasing down a tank on a horse.

This was hardly a new mistake made by the folks at Lucasfilm either, with The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, while still being a solid enough entry into the series, also relying way too much on digital magic to bring its various action set-pieces to life.

The talented VFX artists trying their best to craft realistic looking moments of mayhem definitely delivered some wonderful work at times in these later flicks. But viewers clearly just aren't all that interested in seeing a CGI-stuffed Jones quest, and would have likely just preferred to see Ford's titular character be thrown into intriguing scenarios that didn't rely on such heavy digital assistance - as evidenced by Dial of Destiny's dreadful box office return of $384 million against an apparent $300 million budget.