Furiosa
Furiosa and Garfield have combined to produce one of the worst Memorial Day weekends at the movies in ages, at least in terms of ticket sales.
Those who have seen Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga may be wringing their hands that a movie that good is doing so poorly, just a $25 million opening, but unfortunately, it was not exactly set up for success from the start. Why? A few reasons.
- At baseline, Mad Max: Fury Road is not some extremely massive blockbuster superhit. The film earned $380 million worldwide on a $150 million budget and even more in marketing. Solid, but nothing too insane.
- Furiosa, meanwhile, had an even higher budget at $168 million, but it’s a big ask for not a sequel, but a prequel follow-up to out-earn its predecessor, particularly for one main reason:
- It’s hard to pitch a Mad Max movie without Mad Max actually in it. Absolutely Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy do a phenomenal job, but this is a prequel spin-off of a side character in Fury Road who is not even being played by the same actress this time (Charlize Theron). That’s a bit confusing for the public, or at the very least, not super appealing.
Furiosa
- You do in fact sort of need to have a concrete awareness of the events of the first film, even though this is a prequel, lest it end on something of an anti-climax. This is actually so essential that the film gives you a full highlight reel of the first film at the end to reinforce the villains all do get their just desserts and Furiosa emerges victorious in that film.
- Finally, as much as I would like to say otherwise, critic reviews simply don’t matter that much in terms of overall box office. Or at least they can only move the needle so far. Furiosa has an exceptional 90% score from critics (and also audiences) but in a lot of ways that’s only preaching to the already-converted. It did not seem likely George Miller was going to mess this up, and clearly he did not, but the movie needs more than just Miller die-hards.
Miller has said he’d like to keep making Mad Max movies forever, and I hope he’s able to. But Hollywood and general audiences are not really in a place to reward this kind of commitment at this point, and I’d fear that this kind of performance will hurt his chances of being able to do more. At least with the same studio. At least with the same budget.
There’s really nothing else to be done except tell your friends to see the film if they haven’t. Or convince your children they want to see Furiosa instead of Garfield (kidding, mostly). Furiosa seemed like it wasn’t going to have a real shot to start with, and unfortunately that seems like it’s being proven correct as we speak.
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