George Miller's Mad Max was released in 1979, 45 years ago, and with the release of the latest movie in the franchise, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, this might just be the end of the road of his postapocalyptic films, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Furiosa debuted during the four-day Memorial weekend with $32 million in the box office domestically, and overseas it racked up $36.5 million. The disappointing results could mean that Miller's next installment that he's been planning for years, Mad Max: The Wasteland, may not get made.
The Mad Max conundrum: Furiosa to The Wasteland
Both the director and Nico Lathouris wrote the scripts for Furiosa and The Wasteland as part of their development process of the 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road. Fury Road was a surprise awards season hit, winning six Academy Awards out of 10 nominations, including best editing, costume design and visual effects, making it an instant action classic. The Wasteland would follow the adventures of Max Rockatansky before the events of Fury Road.
Recently, Miller said that making The Wasteland hinged on Furiosa's success.
“I'll definitely wait to see how this [Furiosa] goes, before we even think about it,” the filmmaker told reporters May 16, the morning after the movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and received a seven-minute standing ovation. Sources said that even though Furiosa's box office success was tied to making Wasteland, the third installment hasn't been developed yet. But the studio, Warners, is still proud of Furiosa's performance.
The studio executives have a good reason to feel that way since the movie earned a 90% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, a B+ on Cinemascore and a 7.2 on Metacritic, a generally favorable rating. However, unexpectedly fewer females and younger male adults showed up to watch Furiosa compared to Fury Road nine years ago.
An unfair comparison?
During Fury Road's opening weekend, the audience was split between 60% male to 40% female, according to PostTrak. Furiosa's, on the other hand skewed 71% male to 29% female. This is considered a troubling decline for a film that's been heavily marked as a female-led project. When it comes to the 18-24 year-olds, the most frequent moviegoers, 31% showed up for Fury Road while only 21% for Furiosa.
However, observers have noted that the Mad Max franchise's audience has always been considered niche. The original three films which starred Mel Gibson, earned less than $70 million altogether domestically.
The Wasteland could still push forward if Furiosa improves its box office earnings down the road, the same way Fury Road did. But many box office observers think recovery is doubtful and a rival studio head commented that the movie might not break the $90 million domestic mark.
I think the comparison between Fury Road and Furiosa, while logical, is unfair. Fury Road essentially rebooted the franchise since its last movie Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome was released in 1985. It also had the benefit of two big names, with Tom Hardy recast in Gibson's role and the introduction of a now-iconic Furiosa originated by Charlize Theron.
The Fast and Fury(ious) Road
While its $45.3 million domestic opening and its $379.4 million worldwide box office gross may seem modest by Hollywood standards, it was still a huge accomplishment for the franchise. The reboot also had an bigger-than-expected cultural impact, so much so that the previous Warner Bros. management greenlit Furiosa, seeing it as a away to ride the wave to revitalize the franchise as well as celebrate Miller and Mad Max's 45th anniversary.
The filmmaker chose not to bring Theron back because he felt the the de-aging technology would be distracting. The actress, despite the hardships she experienced during the film's production, said she was sad she couldn't return. Instead, Miller chose Anya Taylor-Joy to play the younger version of the titular character. He then added Chris Hemsworth as the warlord.
A studio insider stated, “I think Furiosa suffered without Charlize. People who see the movie love it. The problem is getting them into theaters. She would have been able to do that.”
A veteran Hollywood executive added, “Fury Road was an outlier in the series. It also had a hot young star and a huge female star. Nine years later, it had neither.”
There's still hope
I'm not sure who they meant as the hot young star since Hardy is only two years younger than Theron. And as for Furiosa not having a hot young star and a huge female star, it had Hemsworth who played Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it also had Taylor-Joy. Both do check the boxes for hot, young, huge stars.
Like I mentioned earlier, the comparisons are unfair. Quite a lot has changed since Fury Road came out. The world went through a pandemic which turned everything upside down — including how people watch movies — and obviously the dual SAG and WGA strikes have taken their toll.
I think it's too early to count Furiosa — and the planned The Wasteland — out. The movie will have the upcoming weekend all to itself. It has the added benefit of playing in IMAX theaters as well as other screens, which were major contributors to the opening weekend earnings.
However, it needs to do as well as it has to because by the next weekend, it will compete with Sony's upcoming action feature Bad Boys: Ride or Die. So fans of the franchise will need to flock to the theaters to support the movie as well as the possibility of seeing the next one, The Wasteland.
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