Here's a list of all the movies with production budgets of $170 million and over, for the past ten years. (We chose the threshold of $170 million because there were a ton of movies clustered around the $150 million-$160 million mark.) Movies that failed to make back their budget at the U.S. box office are underlined.

2009:

Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince: $250 million

Avatar: $237 million (according to AP)

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen: $225 million (according to NY Post)

Terminator Salvation: $200 million

G.I. Joe: The Rise Of COBRA: $175 million

Up: $175 million

2008:

Quantum Of Solace: $230.6 million

Prince Caspian: $225.6 million

Iron Man: 186.5 million

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull: $185.5 million

The Dark Knight: $185.5 million

Wall-E: $180.5 million

2007:

Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End: $317.4 million

Spider-Man 3: $272.9 million

The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials: $213.4 million

Rush Hour 3: $187.4 million

2006:

Superman Returns: $295.3 million

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: $223.1 million

X-Men: The Last Stand: $209.3 million

Poseidon: $171.3 million

2005:

King Kong: $232.5 million

Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe: $197.6 million

Sahara: $176.8 million

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire: $150 million (2005 dollars)

2004:

Spider-Man 2: $232.2 million

Troy: $199.9 million

Van Helsing: $182.8 million

The Polar Express: $186.6 million

Alexander: $175.4 million

2003:

Terminator 3: $238.4 million

The Matrix: Reloaded: $176.7 million

Master And Commander: $175.6 million

The Matrix: Revolutions: $175.6 million

2000:

The Perfect Storm: $175.6 million

1999:

Wild Wild West: $221 million

The World Is Not Enough: $173.3 million

The 13th Warrior: $206.8 million

Notes: All figures are in 2009 dollars, adjusted for inflation. These figures are just production budgets, and are based on the most accurate figures we could find. They don't include marketing budgets. And of course, many of the films which failed to break even at the U.S. box office did make a profit when you factor in international box office.

Conclusions:

There hasn't been a movie as expensive as Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End since 2007, so you could argue that, over all, movies are not getting more expensive. However, after a few years where there were four mega-budgeted movies per year, the last two years have each seen six movies with budgets over $170 million (in inflation-adjusted dollars.) And as we mentioned above, this year had the most movies costing $200 million or more of any year, with next year likely to see even more films over $200 million.

And the listing above doesn't reflect this fact, but we also found a steep rise in the number of movies costing around $150 million every year — this seems to be the safe point for a film that is expected to do well, but may not be a blockbuster. Films like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Batman Begins, Star Trek and many others all have production budgets in the magic $150 million zone.

At the same time, Hollywood seems slightly better at picking winners lately. We haven't had a year where most of the hugely expensive movies failed to make back their budget at the U.S. box office since 2004, when two historical epics, The Polar Expressand Van Helsing all bombed. Or 2003, when one of two Matrix sequels underperformed, along with Terminator 3 and Master And Commander.

One thing jumps out at me: There were apparently no budget busting movies in 2000, 2001 or 2002. Apparently the first X-Men movie, which came out in 2000, had a budget of only about $75 million. And the Star Wars prequels, hideous though they were, were apparently on the cheap side, costing around $120 million each (in non-adjusted dollars.)

Why would this be? Well, look at the three big-budget movies from 1999. Notice anything the three of them have in common? Hmmm... Other mega-expensive bombs in the late 1990s include Speed 2: Cruise Control, Lethal Weapon 4 and, of course, Waterworld. The only mega-budget movies to make money in the latter half of the 1990s were Armageddon and Titanic.

Sources: Know Your Money, Forbes.com, Listphobia, The Numbers, IMDB, Box Office Mojo, Wikipedia, and other sources as cited.

The Darabont script, titled Indiana Jones And The City Of God, follows roughly the same trajectory as the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. The main difference, besides the missing Mutt, is that the "traitor" character is a Russian named Yuri. He's a friend of Indy's, who takes advantage of Indy's trusting nature to borrow Indy's truck and get inside a military base. So it makes a lot of sense that the CIA mistrusts Indy afterwards. There's no Irina Spalko in the script at all.

The script still has the rocket-sled escape, and Indy still uses a fridge to escape a nuclear blast. There's also a huge airplane chase, a mile above the ground, which would have looked fantastic on film. (Except that a monkey poops on Indy.)

With no Mutt to ask for Indy's help, Indy just sort of gets drawn into a web of intrigue instead. He finds the crystal skull in a hotel room whose key he gets from a Grand Central Station locker, whose key he takes, in turn, from an assassin's pocket.

Marion is still in the movie, and actually has a way better part. When she first sees Indy, she punches him in the face. "I told you if I ever saw you again, I'd pop you one!" Marion is in charge of the expedition to find the Lost City of the Gods, and Indy gets signed up as her partner because he has the crystal skull. She and Indy bicker constantly and entertainingly. She's married to a jerky archeologist whom Indy hates — and who turns out to be a Russian spy. "This isn't like leaving the cap off the toothpaste! You're a goddamn Russian spy!"

There are still the giant ants, but there's also a scene where they get attacked by a swarm of killer tree frogs. Really. Killer tree frogs! "Don't let touch 'em! Don't let 'em get on your skin!" Indy shouts.

When they enter the "Chamber of the Gods," there's a star map showing the Pleiades system. There are thirteen headless crystal skeletons, and Indy somehow knows which one to put the skull on. Replacing the skull causes a huge dark machine to emerge and thunder into life, and we can see the aliens the skeletons belonged to, seated in "astronaut blast-seats." An alien mummy appears, with tubes connected from its body to a column, and it starts seeping fluids from its tubes as it connects with the alien skeleton via eye-beams. The alien speaks through Professor Oxley:

WE ARE THE ONES WHO FELL FROM THE HEAVENS. WE ARE THE NEPHALIM. WE ARE THE RUBEZAHL. WE ARE THE LIGHTS IN THE SKY. YOUR KIND HAS GIVEN US MANY NAMES. YOU MAY WORSHIP US.

And the alien reveals that his race "enhanced" humans and gave us civilization. And gave us "knowledge of the stars," including the Mayan calendar. The aliens lift up the five men who seek knowledge/power/whatever — including Indy — and offer them whatever they want. But Indy alone isn't tempted by ultimate knowledge or power, because he realizes what he really wants is Marion. Aww. Everybody else gets a poetic punishment — the evil archeologist who wants total knowledge has his head explode with knowledge, the evil dictator of Peru who wants to be the most feared and deadly becomes a poisonous tree frog. (Later, Indy steps on him.)

Just as things are reaching their peak, Indy shoots the crystal skull, right between the eyes. Blam! Things go boom. And then the alien mummy comes to life and becomes a living alien. Indy says, "Welcome to Earth," and shoots the alien. Blam!Blam!Blam!Blam!Blam! (He doesn't say the "MF" word, sadly.) The alien spaceship tries to take off, a huge saucer rising out of the ground, but it blows up.

We get more resolution on the Indy-is-a-traitor plot — President Eisenhower himself gives Indy the presidential Medal of Total Awesomeness at the end of the movie, and then it cuts to Indy marrying Marion. Awww.

Separately, there's a leaked "scriptment" for an earlier version called Indiana Jones And The Saucer Men From Mars, which is more of a straightforward B-movie about buglike aliens (who speak Sanskrit) and their ultimate weapon that the Russians are trying to get their grabby little hands on. [Thanks to Jack Morrissey's Nerdletter]

The Complete Making Of Indiana Jones [Amazon]

Crappiest effort to pay homage to a once-great franchise, while also failing to pay homage to 1950s science fiction and misapplying CGI ant swarms:

Sure, I said Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a fun afternoon diversion, but that doesn't mean it wasn't total crap. I love Indy, and I loved the "alien skull" premise of this film, and yet the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. The ending felt like bad TV. And no, it's not cool or neato that Indy was able to survive a nuclear bomb blast by hiding inside a refrigerator. I can believe that he might escape a giant zooming rock by the skin of his teeth, but a nuclear bomb? That stretches the bounds of credibility so far that I'm not having fun anymore. I'm just feeling condescended to. Plus, as many io9 commenters already noted, the CGI ants were crap. Swarm of ants = good. Swarm of ants so fake they look like a batch of angry M&Ms (and not the good kind you can drink with the Carl Brandon Society) = crap.

Plus, why did putting the crystal skull inside a burlap sack prevent it from being magnetic? Oh I know: probably the same forces that made gold and gunpowder ferromagnetic in the movie. The force of crap.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull:

I think we've already spoiled the heck out of Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull before now, but some reviews do include a few details we haven't had in morning spoilers. Like the fact that Harold "Ox" Oxley (John Hurt) spent most of his career searching for the lost city of Akator — and finally found it.

And Indy almost married Marion sometime after Raiders of the Lost Ark, but ditched her at the altar. And then Marion never bothered to tell Indy she'd had his child: good old Mutt (Shia LaBeouf.) Indy doesn't approve of the guy Marion married instead of him. And Indy admits to Marion he's been with a few women since then, but "They all had the same problem," he says. "They weren't you." Awww.

Oh, and the movie abandons its CGI-light regimen in the final moments, which may spoil the film a bit for some viewers. [Comic Book Resources]

Wanted:

A new clip from July's super-assassin movie Wanted went online, although the coolest bit was already in the trailer. Actually, the coolest bit may be all the animal bobble heads on the cat-food truck's dashboard. [MovieWeb]

Lost:

The official podcast for island-castaway show Lost's two-hour season finale has gone online. It mentions that the special before the finale will include deleted scenes from the "Oceanic Six" press conference. Ben, Jack and Charles Widmore won't die until the island is done with them — and the island kept Jack from killing himself. We will see Walt again. And they won't say who Abaddon works for, but he's not the "top of the chain." [Lost Spoilers]

Battlestar Galactica:

Some tidbits from Ron Moore's podcasts on recent episodes of robot-apocalypse show Battlestar Galactica: Starbuck's pristine Viper will play a "pivotal role" in an upcoming episode. We will learn more about the Six (and occasionally Baltar) in Gaius Baltar's head, and the Baltar in Caprica Six's head, including how they work and why.

The Galactica will start looking more and more banged-up in upcoming episodes. The Admiral Adama/President Roslin relationship still has some developing to do, and the book Adama is reading to Roslin will play a bigger role in the story. The interactions between the Caprica Six and Col. Tigh in the brig will play an important role in the rest of the series (as you may have guessed from the trailer for episode 8.)

The podcast write-ups also include some info on stuff that Moore and the other writers changed from the earlier drafts of the episodes that have already aired — like Tyrol talking in the final scene of "The Road Less Traveled," when Baltar comes to his quarters. [TV Squad]

There won't be any legal ramifications from Anders' shooting of Gaeta, since it happened during a mutiny. Plus, Adama is a slap-on-the-wrist kind of guy. [ComicMix]

Stargate Atlantis:

The fifth season of Stargate SG-1 spinoff Stargate Atlantis airs starting in July, and more details are emerging. Teyla gives birth to her child, and she'll also get closer to her Wraith side after she communes with a Wraith Queen. After that contact, Teyla's Wraith genes will be activated and she'll become a host for the Wraith Queen herself. Actor Rachel Luttrell will appear in full Wraith makeup and become the leader of "an alliance of Wraith."

And in the show's 100th episode, the cast visits Las Vegas for a more light-hearted story that may involve the Replicators. And as you may have heard, Richard Woolsey (Robert Picardo) takes over as station manager and Dr. Keller (Jewel Staite!!!!) becomes a series regular. [SyFyPortal]

And new detailed spoilers for the twelfth episode of the season have come out. The team gets invited to join a new coalition against the Wraith — but the new government also wants to prosecute the Atlantis Expedition for crimes they allegedly commited. Sheppard speaks to a council made up of representatives of three groups: Kelore of Latira, Shiana of the Tribes of Santhal and Dimas of the Free People of Riva. When a representative of the council, Myrus, comes to Atlantis to tell Woolsey about the situation, Woolsey has Myrus put under arrest in retaliation. Sheppard tells the council all about the plague, and about Michael. (There are flashbacks, which makes this sound like a clips episode.)

Woolsey comes to the council to take over the Atlantis team's defense. Woolsey finds out the Genii are behind the whole prosecution, because they want the Atlantis team out of the way so they can become the military power behind the new coalition. Woolsey tries to convince Kelore that the council is backing the wrong horse and should go with Atlantis instead. Kelore isn't convinced, and then the council accuses Atlantis of conspiring with the Wraith — which is ridiculous, except for the fact that Atlantis was working with Todd. [Notes... Written On Water]

And in another upcoming episode, the Wraith-worshiping Satedan Tyre captures Ronon and tries to sacrifice him to the Wraith. Ronon gets so pumped full of Wraith enzyme, he gives into his dark side and does some damage to Sheppard. Jewel Staite's Keller gets trapped with a Wraith in one episode, and Woolsey shows his emerging courage when he's about to be killed by a Wraith. [Sci Fi Wire]

[IESB]

In general, it looks like Crystal Skull will be the kinkiest of the Jones movies, with bondage, mind control and blowing down the wrong end of a blowdart, among other things.

The movie starts on a downbeat. Indy's dad and his friend Marcus are both dead, and it's been a "brutal couple of years," so he decides to leave the country for a while. Indy's become a bit of an embarrassment so the university decides to give him a "promotion" to Associate Dean. In a scene with his friend the Dean, Indy talks about his feelings of obsolescence, and the Dean says when you're young, you spend so much time finding out who you are and then announcing it to the world. And then when you're old, you just want to know how the world will remember you. Indy takes solace in teaching Archeology 101, which is still full of lustful female students.

In Arnie's Diner, surrounded by lettermen and poodle-skirted coeds, Indy listens to "Mutt" Williams tell about his mom and his surrogate dad, Harold "Ox" Oxley. Ox is a long-lost friend of Indy's, and Mutt's mom claims to have met Indy during his past adventures. (But Mutt's real dad is Colin, an RAF pilot who died in the war.) Mutt is a "rock'n'roll swashbuckler" who was a fencing champion for two years. Mutt has a classical education, thanks to years of boarding schools, in spite of his Marlon Brando demeanor. In the course of his adventure, Mutt learns there's more to life than hair pomade, motorcycles and "shake, rattle 'n' roll." (There is?!)

The early "Hangar 51" warehouse set piece involves the movie's main Russian villains, who are searching for a means of psychic warfare. Indy is forced by Spalko, that Russian dominatrix, to lead her troops to a special crate, using his knowledge of magnetism and some gunpowder and shotgun pellets. The crate slides open to reveal a mysterious figure. There's a sword-fighting confrontation, and Indy threatens to kill Col. Dovchenko unless the Russians drop their weapons. Indy glimpses the Ark of the Covenant in storage, and ends up on the hood of Col. Dovchenko's car, speeding towards a railroad flatcar with jet engines crudely bolted on. The flatcar (rocket sled) roars to life, incinerating some of the pursuing Russians. Indy and an unconscious Dovchenko are flung into a "cushioned blast shield" in the back of the railway car, which flies past the Russian soldiers and winds up miles away, in the desert. Indy staggers out of it.

Spalko was raised in a Ukrainian village, where the superstitious villagers branded her a witch because of her psychic powers.

And at some point, Indy ends up in an artificial town named Doom Town (the one with the weird 1950s life-size dolls) and it's scheduled for nuclear blasting. Indy gets out just in time, but the Russians chasing him are totally liquified.

The skull of the movie's title has a "more atom-age, Roswellian, Chariots of the Gods" origin, based on science rather than magic. Spalko thinks it's a new "mind weapon," Stalin's greatest dream. Whoever returns it to the lost city of Akator gets to control the skull's power. "We will be everywhere at once, Dr. Jones, as powerful as a hypnotic command," she says.

Indy finds the skull behind the mummified body of a Conquistador in Chauchilla Cemetery. For a moment, Indy is so excited about finding the skull, he almost forgets about saving his friends. There's a confrontation involving blow-dart-wielding Nazca warriors dressed as skeletons. (The Nazca are "small, feral and vicious.") Indy and friends escape, only to fall into the hands of Col. Dovchenko and Indy's friend Mac (Ray Winstone), who's a turncoat. Mac later claims to be a double-agent, working for the CIA, but Indy's not sure if he can be trusted. (The cards dealing with Mac's double-crossing are called "Nailing Mac!" and "Nailing Mac... Again!")

At some point, Spalko puts Indy in bondage for an "interrogation." Harold "Ox" Oxley is the key to finding Akator, but an "interpreter" is required. The Russians use Indy as the interpreter, forcing him to stare into the skull's deadly hypnotic eyes. Indy goes into a trance, and Spalko thinks she can use the skull to turn him into a Communist. "Stare into its eyes, and it'll drive you mad," Indy warns. At some point, in the jungle, Indy escapes from the Russians and launches a counterattack. But they launch a counter-counterattack.

Mutt gets stung by a scorpion, but Indy tells him he'll be fine.

The Temple of Akator is such an overwhelming sight, Mutt wants to leave. But Indy says they have to return the skull to the temple, because it asked him to. But then they get attacked by savage Ugha warriors armed with blow darts. Indy kills one of them by blowing on the wrong end of his blow dart, sending the dart back in the opposite direction.

Revealing the skull drives the Ughas away, but then Indy has to solve a "puzzle" to get into the temple — reassembling the four pieces of the pyramid, which are too heavy to lift. Indy figures out he needs to drain sand from the center of the structure, and then the pyramid will automatically reassemble. A 15-foot stone obelisk lying on its side is the "key" to the temple. Indy breaks some stone "plugs" causing the sand to flow, and the enormous obelisk to move.

But Spalko pays a heavy price for her desire to learn all, as the walls of the temple start spinning, and a black sinkhole forms at its center. (At first, I thought it said "shithole.") The double-crossing Mac is pulled in but won't let Indy get dragged down with him. [INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL'S BLOG]

Indiana is once again trying to stop the bad guys from getting their evil hands on another source of ancient power, although this one may be extraterrestrial in origin. Looks like the poorly named Mutt Williams (Shia LeBouf) is the butt of many Indy jokes. And oh my good god, there are a few moments of ancient city's guard zombies, thank you Spielberg and Lucas. I could watch Dr. Jones deliver one-liners, narrowly escape death and put on his hat again and again, no matter what his age.

Still if they were going to bring back the feisty, shot drinking Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) then why not return everyone's real favorite sidekick Short Round? Maybe Short Round can team up with Mutt if we discover that he's Marion's son with Indiana. This will then lead to more Young Jones movies or at the least a Saturday morning cartoon. It doesn't matter how many times Spielberg laughs off the questions, you know he can't avoid the father and son storyline.

Many people had feared that George Lucas' involvement in the new Indiana Jones would mean another spate of greenscreen craziness, along the lines of the three Star Wars prequels. But Dyas says:

There really wasn't much CGI. We built all the sets... We built all of the [moving stone staircases, converging stone pillars and other pieces] so it was very nice.

Download the Indy trailer in HD here.

There's more than one crystal skull, and EW repeats (but doesn't confirm) the speculation that they're extraterrestrial. Also, the skulls may give you psychic powers. Or just look really great under black light. Meanwhile, Shia may or may not be Indy's son, and Cate interrogates Indy, who gets Stockholm Syndrome. And there may be giant ants.

You've basically got two ways to show that something is really, really old in a movie. One is tons of dust, the other is an assload of cobwebs. Indiana Jones normally has both in spades, but they've gone above and beyond for this new movie.

Consider the evidence: in that opening scene in Raiders, he hauls ass through some massive webs before hitting the dirt in front of the Hovitos tribe. What's he covered in? Those same webs. In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom he ventures down into insect-infested catacombs which include what? Giant spiders and cobwebs. In Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade has to again venture into cobwebby catacombs under Venice, and later deal with both a cobwebby Knight of the First Crusade, and his dad's cobweb-addled mind. Look for a final showdown in Indiana Jones and the Giant Spiders From Mars to finally put an end to this issue.

This reminds us of the exchange from the last movie, which we've altered a bit:

Indy: "That belongs in a musuem!"
Panama Hat Man: "So do you! With a ton of cobwebs for effect!"

• 
  
• "I know the critics are going to hate it," he says. "They already hate it. So there's nothing we can do about that. They hate the idea that we're making another one. They've already made up their minds."

  Have we? Granted, we think Harrison might be too old. Sure, we're not certain how this will do without familiars like Marcus Brody and Sallah. Yes, we love to playa-hate on things. But deep down we all hope this rocks and takes us back to that special place we were at when we saw Raiders for the first time. We don't want to hate this movie, we want to love it.

• 
  
• "The fans are all upset. They're always going to be upset. 'Why did he do it like this? And why didn't he do it like this?' They write their own movie, and then, if you don't do their movie, they get upset about it. So you just have to stand by for the bricks and the custard pies, because they're going to come flying your way."

  People at last year's Comic-Con were peeing in their pants when Karen Allen got introduced as Marion. Literally. The smell was overwhelming. Call me nuts, but I think the fans are excited about this thing.

• 
  
• Lucas didn't mention this one, but a potential reason we're already starting to dislike this film is the inclusion of Shia Lebeouf as "Mutt," and probably the offspring of Indy and Marion (Karen Allen), although no one is officially confirming that. He irritated the crap out of us in Transformers, and we have a really itchy feeling that he'll do the same here. However, we're willing to backpocket that and chalk it up to rampant speculation. For now. Mostly because of this picture of him (bleh) sitting in the massive warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark (rad).
• 
  
• 'And then (spoiler warning) Lucas gets a little more (spoiler alert) specific: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will apparently nudge our hero away from his usual milieu of spooky archaeology and into the realm of (spoiler Code Red) science fiction.'

  Sorry Georgie, but this sounds like a reason we'll love Indy IV. We're tired of him going after religious artifacts with supernatural powers. Give us Indy and something all science-y and steampunk-y and we'll love it. But the Area 51 aliens? Ouch.

• 
  
• Not that he mentions it, but another reason to like Indy IV is Cate Blanchett in this Russian dominatrix outfit. Me-yow.
• 
  
• The Vanity Fair author drops this quote from himself near the end of the piece: "No one outside of the filmmakers will know for sure until May 22, but it would be pretty cool if it turns out that Emperor Palpatine had dropped a crystal skull on Earth. Or maybe one was left behind by the skinny dudes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Or maybe it's, like, E.T.'s cell phone. :)"

  If it turns out that anything from the Star Wars universe had anything to do with the Indiana Jones world, then fans are going to march to George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch, burn it to the ground, and then piss into the ashes before trekking down the Spielberg's slightly harder to find domicile and chugging gallons of water on the way in hopes of repeating the process.

  This goes triple as Harrison Ford hops into a classic 1950s car and drives to an American Graffiti-esque diner in this movie.

• Keys to the Kingdom [Vanity Fair]

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have put little inside jokes and sly references to their other films in some of their movies, including a fair share in the Indiana Jones films. In Raiders of the Lost Ark you can see THX-1138 (Lucas' first sci fi film) on the wing of one of the planes, and the opening scene of Temple of Doom takes place in "Club Obi-Wan."

However, Indiana Jones finding aliens in storage at the fabled Area 51? We can hear the faint sounds of a motorcycle revving up, attempting to jump over a shark somewhere. At least this will keep us on our toes when Indiana pulls a lightsaber out of his man-bag and chops E.T. into tiny pieces and then races off in one of the original cars from American Graffiti .

New Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Cameo Rumor [Movieweb]