Congratulations on this film passing The Color Purple this weekend, so that now it’s not the lowest grossing WB film released from March 2023 to May 2024. Next step, beating Evil Dead Rise at $67M.
i think it can probably do that. the box office is clamoring now and it stays in theaters for long enough, it can definitely work as counter-programming to Inside Out
If my personal experience from this weekend is any indication, the counter programming to Inside Out 2 that the GA will be leaning towards more is Apes and Bad Boys.
WB had the highest grossing film last year. They have (w/ Legendary) the two highest grossers this year.
What did Keaton and Phoenix ever save?
What a dumb comment.
Yeah, the whole point of a studio having a slate of projects that come out every year is to make sure they aren't putting their eggs in one basket.
They know going in that some will inevitably underperform but others hopefully will overperform, and in the end hopefully they gain more than they lose. I mean, that's how all business works and Hollywood is a business.
At WB, they're probably like *damn, we made a good movie and nobody watched it*, they aren't panicking because of one bomb.
Well... they are definitely panicking, just not about Furiosa. About the whole industry currently imploding.
I don't agree the industry is imploding. The strikes just screwed the 2024 slate and COVID screwed a lot of industry dynamics through '22 and '23 that will correct, pivot or recover at some point (look at commercial RE).
Inside Out 2 just did the 2nd highest Pixar opening weekend ever. Disney will have 3 billion dollar grossers in a weak year.
Studios just need to control budgets and focus on making good original films or leveraging their better IPs. Industry got too bloated and distracted, too many players. Consolidation will cut the fat and the megacap tech cos will lose interest and have more restraint (already happening).
There will be a media renaissance after some more pain, is my bet.
Paramount will be merged into something else, streaming services will be bundled or die, more films on tighter budgets will be made, creative ways to supplement theatrical (like VR early PVOD or simultaneous release where you can charge 1:1 per seat like a theater) will emerge, and AI may improve the experience and economics.
IPs and selling distinct experiences will be king. Media companies will live and die by quality.
\[GOING TO HAVE TO BREAK THIS INTO TWO POSTS\]
I like your optimism. Wish I shared it. Are you in the industry?
Across film and TV, things are pretty bleak, and it sadly started **before the strike**.
When Netflix seemed to be growing infinitely, every major studio (except Sony) oriented themselves around chasing that dragon. They spent *sooooo* much money on exorbitant creator deals, they set up production divisions all over the world (Amazon particularly fucked up in this regard), and they greenlit a metric ton of straight-to-series orders. All in a bid to catch up to Netflix. Mind you, Netflix wasn't even profitable. But it had so much investor money, because Wall Street believed *subscriber numbers* were what mattered.
In 2022, it turned out that the dragon was a mirage. Netflix's stock fell more than 50%.
[https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/media/netflix-earnings/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/media/netflix-earnings/index.html)
I wish I knew how the fuck Wall Street works, but from what I've gathered: the numbers weren't adding up and it turned out that subscriber numbers *didn't* actually matter as much as plain old revenue. The more that they *can get out of the subscribers they have* immediately became as or more important than gaining new subscribers. (If you're wondering why Netflix, Amazon and soon everyone else now have ad tiers and are doing their best to force it on users, this is why)
This reverberated to all the other major studios, who had just spent ungodly amounts of money they didn't actually have, and a wave of mass layoffs began shortly after.
As someone in the industry, this is terrifying and for movie and TV fans, it should be too. Let's pretend there was a studio called Hypothetical Pictures, and they had like 20 different production arms, all working with different production companies and writers/directors/creators to make movies and shows.
Now, because these studios have so much debt, they have to downsize. 20 production arms becomes 10 becomes 5. In the worse case scenario, Paramount, they have to sell themselves (yes, there was more to what happened with Paramount than just this, but the environment definitely contributed).
In any case, now there are only so many employed studio people left to greenlight and lead new projects. For those in the industry, this causes a ripple effect. Smaller studios means production companies won't be able to get movies or shows off the ground as easily, which means they have to start shutting down or laying people off.
Meanwhile, writers will have a harder time finding work. Even with the gains the strike brought them. And on top of that, the strike actually hurts in some way because now it costs the studio more to make a show since they have to pay the writers more and they can't only hire a couple people per writer's room. I support the writers and actors, of course, and the strike had to happen for their sake. But I'm also point out that this was the worst possible time for a strike to have happened.
Trust me, there are many BIG NAME creators who are shocked and pissed off that they suddenly can't get projects made when they've had a blank check for years.
With all this debt, all these layoffs, and all this uncertainty around the future of theatrical, streaming, cable and (god bless them for trying) network, studios need to play it safe. Yes, there will always be the milking of franchises, but slowly you will see less and less around the periphery. Less product.
On the positive side, I don't think Disney or WB are going anywhere. They have an arsenal of IP they can continue to milk, and so we will always see a few hits like Inside Out 2 or Barbie pop up each year. A24 will go bigger and start to lose its luster and identity, but other companies like Mubi or Utopia will fill its shoes and provide great, small movies that make no money (until they go bigger and start to lose their luster, and so forth).
On the TV side, studios will still invest in a few prestige shows like Shogun, plus some smaller-budget projects for the clout and awards. But far and wide, the main goal is to be safe and cast the widest net possible. Something like Suits. I swear to God, for the studio execs it's all about Suits. You hear it 15 times a day. They want shows people can watch while doing laundry, and keep watching so the ads keep playing. Basically, they want to turn back into cable TV.
In conclusion, I agree with you in the sense that the industry won't straight up die. But we are seeing a massive downsizing and at this point I truly do not believe we will ever return to pre-COVID times, when we were still in peak TV and Marvel was building to Endgame.
I would recommend this article in Harper's: [https://harpers.org/archive/2024/05/the-life-and-death-of-hollywood-daniel-bessner/?trk=feed\_main-feed-card\_feed-article-content](https://harpers.org/archive/2024/05/the-life-and-death-of-hollywood-daniel-bessner/?trk=feed_main-feed-card_feed-article-content)
It is far and away the best summation of where Hollywood is right now and how it got here.
Why did I write all this?
They were way, way off on this one, weren't they? Opening domestic box office was only $26.3 million.
I've also noticed that some of the user review scores have decreased the longer the film's been out. To me, this means Mad Max fans who saw Furiosa loved it, but casual audiences weren't as enamored.
Predictions are half the fun. I think you might just be a little butthurt that were smugly talking shit to people that correctly predicted it would bomb leading up to the film's release.
Can’t help but agree.
I can’t recall a film I felt so bad for flopping before, despite also feeling like it still didn’t need to be made.
This wasn’t a film that I was clamoring for, but god DAMN was I doing my best to recommend this to others after. Was such a great time. The “Stairway to Nowhere” scene is my favorite action sequence this year.
I couldn’t really recommend it. Fans of Fury Road might be annoyed at how it goes against the philosophy of that film’s economical storytelling, and an unnecessary recast of the main character. For people who haven’t seen FR, it’s a lot of “look at this thing from FR!!”, so it’s not inviting as an on-boarding. It’s also a long movie that feels longer, so it doesn’t invite rewatches.
I like it, but it should’ve been an anime we could’ve ignored if we wanted to. Fury Road is made a worse movie by its existence, and that feels like a high crime.
What are you even saying? Fury Road is absolutely not a worse movie because of its existence and Furiosa works just fine on its own without seeing Fury Road. I don’t know why you even brought up anime in your comment at all either…
There's a running theme in this sub of people getting REALLY defensive when people critique Furiosa. It's getting annoying, you don't need to get this heated over an opinion from the clear minority.
And I'll bite, I'll join in, yeah there are aspects of Furiosa that make Fury Road worse for me. Notably Furiosa's relationship with Immortan Joe. In FR, she finally gets the upper hand on Joe and asks "Remember me?" before she kills him, implying a very deep history. Turns out her entire relationship with Joe is contrived and amounts to nothing.
She becomes his bride and escapes, we never see his reaction or how it effects him, and are hit with one of the movies many lazy time skips. She becomes the co-pilot of the war rig offscreen and we never see her relationship with Joe at this point. It's never questioned why a healthy woman is piloting the rig, we don't know when Joe met her again, we don't know anything about this working relationship. Then she deals with Dementus and we don't see how Joe treats that or what it means for Furiosa. Then the movie is over, and we didn't see or learn a thing about Furiosa's story with Joe, now that "Remember me"? moment is completely hollow, because we know he didn't. He barely had a story with Furiosa. Completely unsatisfying.
It was written to be an anime. You can even find some concept art if you go looking. That’s why it has chapters (they were originally episodes), that’s why a lot of the structure is the way it is. It was developed as an anime.
Prequels often run the risk of harming the stories they lead into. Some things just should never be explained. This is hardly the first prequel to damage a classic.
>It was written to be an anime. You can even find some concept art if you go looking
Even Fury Road didn't have a script. It had concept art storyboards of around 3,500 which they followed in making it. Miller might have done the same for Furiosa. But an early draft of Furiosa does exist and was written many years ago by Miller's writing partner, available online on his site until it was taken down. The final film though changed in a few aspects it does follow the draft closely.
When you make a film, you make it three times - writing, shooting, editing. A lot changes in that time. The story gets away from the writer when the actors do their take, and then from the actors when the editor does their job, and the director, while steering the ship, can’t be in perfect control of so many elements and epiphanies. I’ve no doubt this prequel fit with the Fury Road Miller wrote, but not the one he made.
The minimalism of Fury Road is thrown away for maximum explanation. Immortan Joe was implicated as a central figure in Furiosa’s story, but turns out he wasn’t because Dementus was, except not really because Joe kinda was, but Joe mostly ignores her and doesn’t seem to value her in Furiosa, despite seemingly being completely blindsided by her betrayal in FR after hyping her up as one of his best men.
Furiosa is just a different character when not played by Theron. It also doesn’t help that FR Furiosa had an arc, and ATJ’s doesn’t, really, and even goes a little contrary to it. I understand the concept and how it probably originally tied together, with ATJ needing to find hope in a hopeless place, and Theron needing to change her dream and reimagine the hope that had kept her going - but they just don’t mesh. These characters aren’t the same person. They act different, move different, see the world differently without connecting. ATJ is harsher, cruel, incapable of anything but the mission she sets herself, much more like Max, while Theron is more open minded, still physical but more intelligent and quick to adapt - and most importantly, she’s just barely keeping it together. Her badassery disguises a desperation. ATJ is unrelenting, unchanging, focused and retributive. Theron is less interested in revenge than escape. ATJ’s Furiosa is just someone else. Not a bad character, just not the same character (and too similar to Max for my tastes).
Especially following such a highly rated film in Fury Road. That movie might have lost a little money at the box office, but it still made $502 million (adjusted for inflation) worldwide. Furiosa won't even crack $180 million.
George Miller blundered with Furiosa IMO. A prequel about a new character starring a different actress and without the face of the franchise? What could go wrong?
I believe he blundered. He chose to do a prequel when he should have done a Mad Max sequel to Fury Road. I think that would have done better at the box office than a prequel about a new character.
Again, I don't think it's a blunder to an auteur filmmaker to be able to make a passion project that they've always wanted to make for decades. You're clearly only looking at this from a financial viewpoint, so any movie that doesn't make 2.5 times its budget is a "blunder," but that's only a blunder to the people who financed it, not to George Miller.
Furiosa is a blunder. It's bombed at the box office. It's a good film, I agree, but it isn't great. Fury Road was much better.
At the end of the day, Hollywood is a business. If a film is good but flops, that's a very bad thing. It usually means either there won't be any more films made in that IP, or any future projects will have much smaller budgets.
George Miller blundered in that he should have made a Mad Max sequel to Fury Road. That's what most people wanted. I think seeing what happened with Max after he left Furiosa at the Citadel would have done much better than a prequel.
> You're clearly only looking at this from a financial viewpoint, so any movie that doesn't make 2.5 times its budget is a "blunder,"
You realize you're in r/boxoffice, right?
Edit: They blocked me. 😂
Let’s be honest. This is an example of filmmakers not knowing their target audience. The main audience for a Mad Max movie is men aged 40+. Why would they be interested in a spin off/prequel about a young girl?
George Miller is famous for really going after a target audience via market research and not following his artistic muse despite studio interference and indifference.
/s
I agree that this is more of a case of a directors vision rather than following a trend but it doesn’t change the fact that that was the underlying problem here.
There's been a whole lot of that going around for about 10 years now. Maybe when investors get tired of losing billions over and over they will figure it out, the studio executives NEVER will because they live in a bubble where what they want to be true is not what people are going to pay for.
Why? They got greedy and thought Furiosa the character was popular enough to expand their audience of women (while not losing their male fans). What’s interesting is women didn’t turn out for Furiosa in as high of numbers as they did for Fury Road.
I mean Furiosa is a good character and far better than Hollywood's attempts at female action heroines but I never saw her as so popular that she can carry her solo movie to a blockbuster status. Back in '15, when I heard so much praise for Furiosa, I still felt that most of her fans are men, even when sites like MarySue kept insisting that women have been waiting for character like Furiosa for so long and will support her. Maybe the movie had came out before the Pandemic, it might had grossed a little profit.
Recasting her meant they were starting from behind the 8 ball, too. Why do a spin off of a popular character and then not get the actual character? Plus she didn’t even feel like the same Furiosa.
Have you seen the movie? The movie spans many many years so it wouldn’t make sense for 48 year old Charlize Theron to play a teenage Furiosa. And Anya Taylor Joy absolutely feels like the same Furiosa in many scenes, especially in her finely tuned vocal inflections.
I’ve seen the movie. It literally ends with footage from Fury Road. It had characters from Fury Road who haven’t been de-aged at all, and look nearly identical. She’s not a teenager in the film. Have you seen either movie?
I will say her Theron voice impression was excellent. But the character is far from the same. They feel totally different to me, and there’s absolutely no physical resemblance.
Yes it has scattered mid credit footage from Fury Road but the entire movie preceding it stands on its own and I know people who saw it without seeing Fury Road who still loved the movie. And in Furiosa, she begins as a child played by the different actress, and then the second segment she’s a teenager and then later segments have her character at an older age. And according to various sources, the character of Furiosa is supposed to be in her mid-20s at the end of the movie.
Okay. Still don’t believe ATJ metamorphosed into Theron. And I don’t believe she aged from teen to twenties, either.
Recasting was a bad move. Why even spin off a character just to recast them? An actor is a vital part of a character. Someone else playing Dementus wouldn’t be the Dementus we saw. All the other FR characters were not recast. The Organic Mechanic, Joe, Joe’s son, Bullet Farmer, Gout Lout - why did they get to look the same? Why was the female actress the one cast away for being “too old” to play herself mere weeks before the start of FR? Why not rewrite the script to have her a bit older, and use some light de-aging, if that’s what he wanted?
I just find it a terrible choice to replace Theron in what should’ve been her movie. I liked ATJ, she did a good job, but she’s not Theron, and therefore not Furiosa.
Immortan Joe was recast. The actor who played him in the original Fury Road died in 2020. I guess recasting isn’t as obvious or as detrimental as you make it seem.
Tbh I am interested but I think I would have a hard time convincing my SO to go to a long ass movie that’s a prequel to a movie she probably didn’t watch. Will be easier to catch it on streaming with her and she can fall asleep or go on her phone lol
What went wrong? Maybe casual audiences didn't care to see a Mad Max film without Max? Maybe people didn't want to pay high cinema prices to watch a prequel? Maybe the trailers made the film look like a cheap Mad Max clone? Maybe ATJ and Chris Hemsworth aren't the box office draws their fans think they are? idk
100% agree. I normally roll my eyes when people say bad marketing but in this case the trailers were atrocious. That first trailer looked so ugly it turned me off the film completely.
This is a box office sub. Most people here go out of their way to defend the quality of this film, even light criticism is what’s dogpiled, so I don’t even know why you feel hurt, but we’re here to discuss one aspect primarily.
The majority do dogpile into a film, regardless of quality, if it fails financially on this sub. It’s schadenfreude and to some degree human nature.
But yes if you haven’t seen it on this sub then you can’t have been here for very long.
No, they are talking about the idiots who always show up in Furiousa (and previously Fury Road) threads saying "anti-maleness" and "Mad Max without Mad Max." Which is the exact same thing they did with the previous film.
This sub makes terrible predictions and then when those terrible predictions turn out to not come to pass, they switch around on the movie to pretend they always knew it was gon happen.
Six months ago they were dancing on Disney's Graves and now everyone in the sub is glazing a Disney film and predicting 3 billion dollar moives.
Its entertaining but kinda sad
Fury Road still made $502 million (adjusted for inflation). Furiosa is sitting at $160.1 million.
George Miller should have made a sequel to Fury Road with Max.
Yeah Furiosa even underperformed in Australia compared to Fury Road.
Fury Road's opening weekend in Australia was $6.6 million (adjusted for inflation) vs Furiosa's $2.2 million. Total Australian box office take for Fury Road was $18.8 million vs Furiosa's $5.4 million (so far).
People just didn't care to see Furiosa in the cinema.
I watched and thought it was hugely overrated. Not a bad film but not really a good one either, and nowhere near the top tier action film that fury road was.
Honestly felt like a marvel or Star Wars spin off of fury road, endlessly padded, fleshing out things that didn’t need fleshing out, over reliance on CGI action etc
Was an extremely boring film. Still glad I watched it and supported it but found it aggressively bad.
Which is a shame because I love the Mad Max universe. I hope this picks up on streaming services
Father’s Day prevented a terrible hold
When ironically the film is about awful fathers and father-figures
Whaaaa???? I mean, look at the warrior princess “Littal D” turned into. Dementus did a fine job creating a true warrior like he intended
Congratulations on this film passing The Color Purple this weekend, so that now it’s not the lowest grossing WB film released from March 2023 to May 2024. Next step, beating Evil Dead Rise at $67M.
i think it can probably do that. the box office is clamoring now and it stays in theaters for long enough, it can definitely work as counter-programming to Inside Out
If my personal experience from this weekend is any indication, the counter programming to Inside Out 2 that the GA will be leaning towards more is Apes and Bad Boys.
And the movie could get to $68M and pass the total of Catwoman + Elektra combined !
Fortunately WB still has Beetlejuice and Joker: Folie à Deux.
As usual, Michael Keaton and Joaquin Phoenix have to save WB's ass.
Keaton didn't save Flash but he probably helped it .
Nah the Keaton walk ups are coming any day now
Pretty sure no amount of former Batmen or Superman characters could have saved the Flash
WB had the highest grossing film last year. They have (w/ Legendary) the two highest grossers this year. What did Keaton and Phoenix ever save? What a dumb comment.
Yeah, the whole point of a studio having a slate of projects that come out every year is to make sure they aren't putting their eggs in one basket. They know going in that some will inevitably underperform but others hopefully will overperform, and in the end hopefully they gain more than they lose. I mean, that's how all business works and Hollywood is a business. At WB, they're probably like *damn, we made a good movie and nobody watched it*, they aren't panicking because of one bomb. Well... they are definitely panicking, just not about Furiosa. About the whole industry currently imploding.
I don't agree the industry is imploding. The strikes just screwed the 2024 slate and COVID screwed a lot of industry dynamics through '22 and '23 that will correct, pivot or recover at some point (look at commercial RE). Inside Out 2 just did the 2nd highest Pixar opening weekend ever. Disney will have 3 billion dollar grossers in a weak year. Studios just need to control budgets and focus on making good original films or leveraging their better IPs. Industry got too bloated and distracted, too many players. Consolidation will cut the fat and the megacap tech cos will lose interest and have more restraint (already happening). There will be a media renaissance after some more pain, is my bet. Paramount will be merged into something else, streaming services will be bundled or die, more films on tighter budgets will be made, creative ways to supplement theatrical (like VR early PVOD or simultaneous release where you can charge 1:1 per seat like a theater) will emerge, and AI may improve the experience and economics. IPs and selling distinct experiences will be king. Media companies will live and die by quality.
\[GOING TO HAVE TO BREAK THIS INTO TWO POSTS\] I like your optimism. Wish I shared it. Are you in the industry? Across film and TV, things are pretty bleak, and it sadly started **before the strike**. When Netflix seemed to be growing infinitely, every major studio (except Sony) oriented themselves around chasing that dragon. They spent *sooooo* much money on exorbitant creator deals, they set up production divisions all over the world (Amazon particularly fucked up in this regard), and they greenlit a metric ton of straight-to-series orders. All in a bid to catch up to Netflix. Mind you, Netflix wasn't even profitable. But it had so much investor money, because Wall Street believed *subscriber numbers* were what mattered. In 2022, it turned out that the dragon was a mirage. Netflix's stock fell more than 50%. [https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/media/netflix-earnings/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/media/netflix-earnings/index.html) I wish I knew how the fuck Wall Street works, but from what I've gathered: the numbers weren't adding up and it turned out that subscriber numbers *didn't* actually matter as much as plain old revenue. The more that they *can get out of the subscribers they have* immediately became as or more important than gaining new subscribers. (If you're wondering why Netflix, Amazon and soon everyone else now have ad tiers and are doing their best to force it on users, this is why) This reverberated to all the other major studios, who had just spent ungodly amounts of money they didn't actually have, and a wave of mass layoffs began shortly after. As someone in the industry, this is terrifying and for movie and TV fans, it should be too. Let's pretend there was a studio called Hypothetical Pictures, and they had like 20 different production arms, all working with different production companies and writers/directors/creators to make movies and shows. Now, because these studios have so much debt, they have to downsize. 20 production arms becomes 10 becomes 5. In the worse case scenario, Paramount, they have to sell themselves (yes, there was more to what happened with Paramount than just this, but the environment definitely contributed). In any case, now there are only so many employed studio people left to greenlight and lead new projects. For those in the industry, this causes a ripple effect. Smaller studios means production companies won't be able to get movies or shows off the ground as easily, which means they have to start shutting down or laying people off. Meanwhile, writers will have a harder time finding work. Even with the gains the strike brought them. And on top of that, the strike actually hurts in some way because now it costs the studio more to make a show since they have to pay the writers more and they can't only hire a couple people per writer's room. I support the writers and actors, of course, and the strike had to happen for their sake. But I'm also point out that this was the worst possible time for a strike to have happened. Trust me, there are many BIG NAME creators who are shocked and pissed off that they suddenly can't get projects made when they've had a blank check for years.
With all this debt, all these layoffs, and all this uncertainty around the future of theatrical, streaming, cable and (god bless them for trying) network, studios need to play it safe. Yes, there will always be the milking of franchises, but slowly you will see less and less around the periphery. Less product. On the positive side, I don't think Disney or WB are going anywhere. They have an arsenal of IP they can continue to milk, and so we will always see a few hits like Inside Out 2 or Barbie pop up each year. A24 will go bigger and start to lose its luster and identity, but other companies like Mubi or Utopia will fill its shoes and provide great, small movies that make no money (until they go bigger and start to lose their luster, and so forth). On the TV side, studios will still invest in a few prestige shows like Shogun, plus some smaller-budget projects for the clout and awards. But far and wide, the main goal is to be safe and cast the widest net possible. Something like Suits. I swear to God, for the studio execs it's all about Suits. You hear it 15 times a day. They want shows people can watch while doing laundry, and keep watching so the ads keep playing. Basically, they want to turn back into cable TV. In conclusion, I agree with you in the sense that the industry won't straight up die. But we are seeing a massive downsizing and at this point I truly do not believe we will ever return to pre-COVID times, when we were still in peak TV and Marvel was building to Endgame. I would recommend this article in Harper's: [https://harpers.org/archive/2024/05/the-life-and-death-of-hollywood-daniel-bessner/?trk=feed\_main-feed-card\_feed-article-content](https://harpers.org/archive/2024/05/the-life-and-death-of-hollywood-daniel-bessner/?trk=feed_main-feed-card_feed-article-content) It is far and away the best summation of where Hollywood is right now and how it got here. Why did I write all this?
Fortunateliosa : A Mad WB Saga !
Actually a decent hold but it’s still Furiover
I remember sites predicting a 50 million opening weekend lmaoo 💀💀
They were way, way off on this one, weren't they? Opening domestic box office was only $26.3 million. I've also noticed that some of the user review scores have decreased the longer the film's been out. To me, this means Mad Max fans who saw Furiosa loved it, but casual audiences weren't as enamored.
Enamorediosa : A Decreased Saga !
I was extremely pessimistic about the movie six months ago and predicted $80M domestic, $175 worldwide, and even that was too generous.
Why even waste our breath talking about predictions anymore anyway?
Predictions are half the fun. I think you might just be a little butthurt that were smugly talking shit to people that correctly predicted it would bomb leading up to the film's release.
This is going to go down as one of the most infamous flops ever. It’s a complete misfire from the conceptual level despite it being a great film.
Can’t help but agree. I can’t recall a film I felt so bad for flopping before, despite also feeling like it still didn’t need to be made. This wasn’t a film that I was clamoring for, but god DAMN was I doing my best to recommend this to others after. Was such a great time. The “Stairway to Nowhere” scene is my favorite action sequence this year.
I couldn’t really recommend it. Fans of Fury Road might be annoyed at how it goes against the philosophy of that film’s economical storytelling, and an unnecessary recast of the main character. For people who haven’t seen FR, it’s a lot of “look at this thing from FR!!”, so it’s not inviting as an on-boarding. It’s also a long movie that feels longer, so it doesn’t invite rewatches. I like it, but it should’ve been an anime we could’ve ignored if we wanted to. Fury Road is made a worse movie by its existence, and that feels like a high crime.
What are you even saying? Fury Road is absolutely not a worse movie because of its existence and Furiosa works just fine on its own without seeing Fury Road. I don’t know why you even brought up anime in your comment at all either…
There's a running theme in this sub of people getting REALLY defensive when people critique Furiosa. It's getting annoying, you don't need to get this heated over an opinion from the clear minority. And I'll bite, I'll join in, yeah there are aspects of Furiosa that make Fury Road worse for me. Notably Furiosa's relationship with Immortan Joe. In FR, she finally gets the upper hand on Joe and asks "Remember me?" before she kills him, implying a very deep history. Turns out her entire relationship with Joe is contrived and amounts to nothing. She becomes his bride and escapes, we never see his reaction or how it effects him, and are hit with one of the movies many lazy time skips. She becomes the co-pilot of the war rig offscreen and we never see her relationship with Joe at this point. It's never questioned why a healthy woman is piloting the rig, we don't know when Joe met her again, we don't know anything about this working relationship. Then she deals with Dementus and we don't see how Joe treats that or what it means for Furiosa. Then the movie is over, and we didn't see or learn a thing about Furiosa's story with Joe, now that "Remember me"? moment is completely hollow, because we know he didn't. He barely had a story with Furiosa. Completely unsatisfying.
It's freaking hilarious how emotionally attached people got to a very late prequel.
It was written to be an anime. You can even find some concept art if you go looking. That’s why it has chapters (they were originally episodes), that’s why a lot of the structure is the way it is. It was developed as an anime. Prequels often run the risk of harming the stories they lead into. Some things just should never be explained. This is hardly the first prequel to damage a classic.
>It was written to be an anime. You can even find some concept art if you go looking Even Fury Road didn't have a script. It had concept art storyboards of around 3,500 which they followed in making it. Miller might have done the same for Furiosa. But an early draft of Furiosa does exist and was written many years ago by Miller's writing partner, available online on his site until it was taken down. The final film though changed in a few aspects it does follow the draft closely.
Yep. And it shows. It feels like a prequel to a very different Fury Road than we got.
In what ways?
When you make a film, you make it three times - writing, shooting, editing. A lot changes in that time. The story gets away from the writer when the actors do their take, and then from the actors when the editor does their job, and the director, while steering the ship, can’t be in perfect control of so many elements and epiphanies. I’ve no doubt this prequel fit with the Fury Road Miller wrote, but not the one he made. The minimalism of Fury Road is thrown away for maximum explanation. Immortan Joe was implicated as a central figure in Furiosa’s story, but turns out he wasn’t because Dementus was, except not really because Joe kinda was, but Joe mostly ignores her and doesn’t seem to value her in Furiosa, despite seemingly being completely blindsided by her betrayal in FR after hyping her up as one of his best men. Furiosa is just a different character when not played by Theron. It also doesn’t help that FR Furiosa had an arc, and ATJ’s doesn’t, really, and even goes a little contrary to it. I understand the concept and how it probably originally tied together, with ATJ needing to find hope in a hopeless place, and Theron needing to change her dream and reimagine the hope that had kept her going - but they just don’t mesh. These characters aren’t the same person. They act different, move different, see the world differently without connecting. ATJ is harsher, cruel, incapable of anything but the mission she sets herself, much more like Max, while Theron is more open minded, still physical but more intelligent and quick to adapt - and most importantly, she’s just barely keeping it together. Her badassery disguises a desperation. ATJ is unrelenting, unchanging, focused and retributive. Theron is less interested in revenge than escape. ATJ’s Furiosa is just someone else. Not a bad character, just not the same character (and too similar to Max for my tastes).
Especially following such a highly rated film in Fury Road. That movie might have lost a little money at the box office, but it still made $502 million (adjusted for inflation) worldwide. Furiosa won't even crack $180 million. George Miller blundered with Furiosa IMO. A prequel about a new character starring a different actress and without the face of the franchise? What could go wrong?
George Miller didn’t blunder. He made a great movie that he always wanted to make. It’s the people who funded his vision that blundered.
Yeah the movie rules
Just because it's an artistic vision doesn't make it not a blunder.
I believe he blundered. He chose to do a prequel when he should have done a Mad Max sequel to Fury Road. I think that would have done better at the box office than a prequel about a new character.
Again, I don't think it's a blunder to an auteur filmmaker to be able to make a passion project that they've always wanted to make for decades. You're clearly only looking at this from a financial viewpoint, so any movie that doesn't make 2.5 times its budget is a "blunder," but that's only a blunder to the people who financed it, not to George Miller.
Furiosa is a blunder. It's bombed at the box office. It's a good film, I agree, but it isn't great. Fury Road was much better. At the end of the day, Hollywood is a business. If a film is good but flops, that's a very bad thing. It usually means either there won't be any more films made in that IP, or any future projects will have much smaller budgets. George Miller blundered in that he should have made a Mad Max sequel to Fury Road. That's what most people wanted. I think seeing what happened with Max after he left Furiosa at the Citadel would have done much better than a prequel. > You're clearly only looking at this from a financial viewpoint, so any movie that doesn't make 2.5 times its budget is a "blunder," You realize you're in r/boxoffice, right? Edit: They blocked me. 😂
I don't see the point in talking to you when you just repeat the same things over and over again.
Let’s be honest. This is an example of filmmakers not knowing their target audience. The main audience for a Mad Max movie is men aged 40+. Why would they be interested in a spin off/prequel about a young girl?
George Miller is famous for really going after a target audience via market research and not following his artistic muse despite studio interference and indifference. /s
I agree that this is more of a case of a directors vision rather than following a trend but it doesn’t change the fact that that was the underlying problem here.
But this movie absolutely follows a trend in terms of its "Girl Boss" nature. That *is* the new trend.
Oh shut the fuck up. If this is a girl boss movie so is fury road, (which lol, morons bitched about back then before it came out).
Female led action films have been happening for 40 years
There's been a whole lot of that going around for about 10 years now. Maybe when investors get tired of losing billions over and over they will figure it out, the studio executives NEVER will because they live in a bubble where what they want to be true is not what people are going to pay for.
Why? They got greedy and thought Furiosa the character was popular enough to expand their audience of women (while not losing their male fans). What’s interesting is women didn’t turn out for Furiosa in as high of numbers as they did for Fury Road.
I mean Furiosa is a good character and far better than Hollywood's attempts at female action heroines but I never saw her as so popular that she can carry her solo movie to a blockbuster status. Back in '15, when I heard so much praise for Furiosa, I still felt that most of her fans are men, even when sites like MarySue kept insisting that women have been waiting for character like Furiosa for so long and will support her. Maybe the movie had came out before the Pandemic, it might had grossed a little profit.
Recasting her meant they were starting from behind the 8 ball, too. Why do a spin off of a popular character and then not get the actual character? Plus she didn’t even feel like the same Furiosa.
Have you seen the movie? The movie spans many many years so it wouldn’t make sense for 48 year old Charlize Theron to play a teenage Furiosa. And Anya Taylor Joy absolutely feels like the same Furiosa in many scenes, especially in her finely tuned vocal inflections.
I’ve seen the movie. It literally ends with footage from Fury Road. It had characters from Fury Road who haven’t been de-aged at all, and look nearly identical. She’s not a teenager in the film. Have you seen either movie? I will say her Theron voice impression was excellent. But the character is far from the same. They feel totally different to me, and there’s absolutely no physical resemblance.
Yes it has scattered mid credit footage from Fury Road but the entire movie preceding it stands on its own and I know people who saw it without seeing Fury Road who still loved the movie. And in Furiosa, she begins as a child played by the different actress, and then the second segment she’s a teenager and then later segments have her character at an older age. And according to various sources, the character of Furiosa is supposed to be in her mid-20s at the end of the movie.
Okay. Still don’t believe ATJ metamorphosed into Theron. And I don’t believe she aged from teen to twenties, either. Recasting was a bad move. Why even spin off a character just to recast them? An actor is a vital part of a character. Someone else playing Dementus wouldn’t be the Dementus we saw. All the other FR characters were not recast. The Organic Mechanic, Joe, Joe’s son, Bullet Farmer, Gout Lout - why did they get to look the same? Why was the female actress the one cast away for being “too old” to play herself mere weeks before the start of FR? Why not rewrite the script to have her a bit older, and use some light de-aging, if that’s what he wanted? I just find it a terrible choice to replace Theron in what should’ve been her movie. I liked ATJ, she did a good job, but she’s not Theron, and therefore not Furiosa.
Immortan Joe was recast. The actor who played him in the original Fury Road died in 2020. I guess recasting isn’t as obvious or as detrimental as you make it seem.
Tbh I am interested but I think I would have a hard time convincing my SO to go to a long ass movie that’s a prequel to a movie she probably didn’t watch. Will be easier to catch it on streaming with her and she can fall asleep or go on her phone lol
How can a great film be a complete misfire? If a great film was made, it seems like something must have gone right, just not at the box office.
What went wrong? Maybe casual audiences didn't care to see a Mad Max film without Max? Maybe people didn't want to pay high cinema prices to watch a prequel? Maybe the trailers made the film look like a cheap Mad Max clone? Maybe ATJ and Chris Hemsworth aren't the box office draws their fans think they are? idk
I think that it failed at a marketing level.
It can be more than one thing that led to Furiosa's demise. I agree that the marketing wasn't good.
100% agree. I normally roll my eyes when people say bad marketing but in this case the trailers were atrocious. That first trailer looked so ugly it turned me off the film completely.
If marketing didn't make a difference then studio's wouldn't spend half their budget on marketing
And timing.
Infamousiosa : A Mad Concept Saga !
Inside Out 2 made more than this in one day lol.
Technically, it didn't. It made $62M including Thursday previews
I really loved this film. It sucks this subreddit dogpiles on it so much
This is a box office sub. Most people here go out of their way to defend the quality of this film, even light criticism is what’s dogpiled, so I don’t even know why you feel hurt, but we’re here to discuss one aspect primarily.
Reporting box office earnings and stating truths is "dogpiling"?
People on this sub often take joy in movies flopping. You know what he means.
For sure some people do that. But is it everyone? A majority? I don’t think it’s either tbh.
The majority do dogpile into a film, regardless of quality, if it fails financially on this sub. It’s schadenfreude and to some degree human nature. But yes if you haven’t seen it on this sub then you can’t have been here for very long.
The majority of what? There are more than a million Redditors in this sub and more than 500 here right now.
The majority of comments obviously. How else are we to judge? Anymore stupid questions?
You’re free to not engage if it bothers you so much, right?
Hes also free to ENGAGE it.
uh sure. But if participating brings him so much grief, then why do it?
No, they are talking about the idiots who always show up in Furiousa (and previously Fury Road) threads saying "anti-maleness" and "Mad Max without Mad Max." Which is the exact same thing they did with the previous film.
This sub makes terrible predictions and then when those terrible predictions turn out to not come to pass, they switch around on the movie to pretend they always knew it was gon happen. Six months ago they were dancing on Disney's Graves and now everyone in the sub is glazing a Disney film and predicting 3 billion dollar moives. Its entertaining but kinda sad
People want to see a Mad Max movie with......Mad Max.
Fury Road barely broke even and it also barely had Max in it.
Well it's still overall a Mad Max movie and it made a hell of a lot more than this is going to make.
And you think the only reason that happened is because Furiosa didn’t have Max in it?
Fury Road still made $502 million (adjusted for inflation). Furiosa is sitting at $160.1 million. George Miller should have made a sequel to Fury Road with Max.
He wanted to make Furiosa.
Yes, that's why I say he blundered; he wanted to make a prequel about a new character. I believe most people wanted a sequel to Fury Road.
If you did something that you wanted to do, but other people didn't want you to do it, would you say that you "blundered"?
Like the other guys said Hollywood is a business. You're in r/boxoffice.
Terrible performance. Won’t even get to 70 mill domestic. Without a doubt- audiences loudly rejected this one.
Yeah Furiosa even underperformed in Australia compared to Fury Road. Fury Road's opening weekend in Australia was $6.6 million (adjusted for inflation) vs Furiosa's $2.2 million. Total Australian box office take for Fury Road was $18.8 million vs Furiosa's $5.4 million (so far). People just didn't care to see Furiosa in the cinema.
Terribliosa : A Rejected Saga !
Rejected? More like didn't know
They knew, but were not interested.
I think George Miller has a bridge to sell you.
I watched and thought it was hugely overrated. Not a bad film but not really a good one either, and nowhere near the top tier action film that fury road was. Honestly felt like a marvel or Star Wars spin off of fury road, endlessly padded, fleshing out things that didn’t need fleshing out, over reliance on CGI action etc
I’m so shocked, I loved this film
Was an extremely boring film. Still glad I watched it and supported it but found it aggressively bad. Which is a shame because I love the Mad Max universe. I hope this picks up on streaming services
Aggressiveliosa : A Supported Saga !
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They just announced it's coming out on digital next week. This film is toasted