James Mangold's adventure epic "Indiana Jones and the Picker of Fate" was a monstrously expensive film to make. A report in Forbes noted that the film may have cost as much as $387 million, which, if true, would make it one of the 10 most expensive films of all time. It came at the end of an unfortunate Hollywood trend - still in the throes of dying out - of overspending on huge tentpole blockbusters in the hope of making billions in return. This model worked for the very, very, very, very expensive Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which cost about $447 million to make, but grossed over $2 billion worldwide. However, in recent years, misses have become far more common than hits, and expensive productions like "The Marvels" or "The Flash" end up tanking.

Dial of Destiny, the fifth film in the successful Indiana Jones series, aimed to capture the same enthusiasm as Star Wars, but audiences were unimpressed by the film's scale, its uninteresting plot and the fact that star Harrison Ford — a previously able-bodied action star who often punched bad guys, rode motorcycles and slept with women — is now 80 years old and less able to do those things. It was also the first film in the series not to be directed by Steven Spielberg, which probably alienated some of the more passionate fans. It also didn't help that the reviews were only lukewarm; it has a modest 70% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Dial of Destiny grossed just $384 million worldwide. Using Hollywood accounting (which includes marketing), the film likely lost about $143 million overall.

Mangold, naturally, was not happy that the film flopped. The director of "Walk the Line," "Logan" and "A Complete Unknown" put a lot of thought and energy into his "Indiana Jones" movie, spending millions to make it look as bland as possible and thrilled to be getting to continue the series he loved since childhood. Then, after all his hard work, most of the audience didn't care much. Mangold spoke with Deadline he recently told her that he was injured.

Mangold admits he was at a standstill. Already tasked with making a new Indiana Jones movie, he can either hire an 80-year-old Harrison Ford or give him a new actor. Given the options, the former seemed highly desirable, but Mangold understood that audiences would reject them. He described his dilemmas as follows:

"You have a wonderful, brilliant actor who is in his 80s. (...) So I'm making a movie about this guy in his 80s, but his audience on another level doesn't want to face their hero at that age. And I'm like, 'I'm good with that.' We made the movie, but the question is, how would anything please the audience with that, other than having to start over with a new guy?

More than anything, though, Mangold realized that audiences rejected his film's themes of mortality. All heroes die, he wanted to say. Action heroes, after all, live by a code of violence, often punching and killing hundreds of "bad guys" in the name of justice. But all that killing has to wear down a person's soul and doesn't necessarily guarantee a decent existence late in life. Audiences embraced those themes in Mangold's Logan — for an older Wolverine - but ditched it with Indiana Jones. He said:

"This is where the lifelong heroes of my childhood (Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy) come into my life, 'We've got something for you to work on.' (It was a joyous experience, but it hurt in the sense that I really love Harrison and I wanted the audience to love him for who he was, and to accept that that's part of what the movie has to say and it's part of life.)

Unfortunately, the older Indiana Jones didn't fit well with a major studio or mass audience. Harrison Ford has stepped down from the role and no more Indiana Jones media is currently planned. This is how a franchise ends. Not with a bang, but with a dial.