<Tr> <Th> Budget </Th> <Td> $28.2 million </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Box office </Th> <Td> $333.1 million </Td> </Tr> <P> Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 American action - adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg . It is the second installment in the Indiana Jones franchise and a prequel to the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, featuring Harrison Ford reprising his role as the title character . After arriving in North India, Indiana Jones is asked by desperate villagers to find a mystical stone and rescue their children from a Thuggee cult practicing child slavery, black magic and ritual human sacrifice in honor of the goddess Kali . </P> <P> Executive producer and co-writer George Lucas made the film a prequel as he did not want the Nazis to be the villains again . After three rejected plot devices, Lucas wrote a film treatment that resembled the film's final storyline . Lawrence Kasdan, Lucas's collaborator on Raiders of the Lost Ark, turned down the offer to write the script, and Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz were hired as his replacements, with the screenplay partly based upon the 1939 film Gunga Din . </P>

When does the temple of doom take place