Hollywood is quick to find excuses not to make another Mad Max movie after Furiosa

last weekend, Furiosa: The Mad Max Saga It opened in theaters to disappointing box office returns, grossing about $64 million worldwide on a budget of $168 million. It’s still early in the film’s release, but Hollywood industry insiders quickly became concerned that this would kill what at one time looked like a revitalized franchise.

Director George Miller made it Mad Max Movies since the 1970s. The first three films starred Mel Gibson in the lead role and collectively grossed just under $70 million worldwide. There was no guarantee that 2015 Mad Max: Fury Road It would do better, especially after the franchise has been dormant for 30 years, however Road of anger It became an instant classic, grossing nearly $380 million on a $150 million budget. This wasn’t actually a resounding success by Hollywood standards at the time – for reference, a Pixar film Inside out It made $850 million that year – but Road of anger The film had a huge cultural impact, George Miller was a cult favorite in Hollywood for decades, and the film performed well enough to enable Warner Bros. to release it. Of support for the advance part, albeit slowly: Furiosa It won’t come out until nine years later.

And now it looks like it might bomb at the box office. Again, the race hasn’t started yet, but insiders are already talking to him Hollywood Reporter Trying to diagnose what went wrong. “Road of anger “He was an outsider in the series,” one executive said. “It also had a hot young star and a huge female star. After nine years, neither has happened.”

The exciting young star was Tom Hardy as Mad Max himself and the huge star was Charlize Theron as Furiosa, arguably the film’s main protagonist. Furiosa It excludes Max entirely and focuses on the young woman Furiosa, now played by Anya Taylor-Joy. Marvel veteran Chris Hemsworth plays her antagonist Dementus. I’m a bit curious about this explanation, because do Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth have much less star power than Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy did in 2015? I think this is an open question, but some studio insiders seem convinced that the new film has been made Furiosa One said: “She suffered without Charlize.” “People who see the movie love it. The problem is getting them into theaters. She was able to do that.”

I think there’s a little more weight to the idea of ​​that Road of anger It was an oddity in a franchise that usually has a more niche appeal. Road of anger It wasn’t just the best Mad Max Film not yet produced; It was the best action film made in years, and it probably got a boost from that.

However, you are thinking more about the new Mad Max Fans created by Road of anger He was coming back for the introduction. Maybe a lot of time has passed, and Furiosa He was only able to arrest the fanatics Mad Max Fans who have always loved the series. “Like I.P Mad Max And Ghostbusters He is old“They have the fans that will get them,” said one theater chain executive. “If studios can budget for it, they could make some decent money.”

Another explanation for substandard performance is that Furiosa It is: a) a premise, something I think a lot of people are tired of in an age where Hollywood can’t seem to stop turning everything endlessly, and; b) It starred a woman in the lead role, or at least a character who wasn’t Max Rockatansky, the character who gave the series its name.

But lest we blame the film’s poor box office on the male audience’s unwillingness to watch an action film about a woman, THR It has some interesting stats for us: Apparently the box office split for Road of anger The opening weekend was 60 percent male and 40 percent female. But for Furiosa71 percent were male and 29 percent were female. In terms of age groups, 18 to 24 year olds made up about 31 percent of the audience. Road of anger But only 21 percent for Furiosa. So interest seems to have declined across the board.

There is also the idea that people are becoming less interested in going to cinemas after they have become accustomed to watching films and shows at home, although films such as Barbie And Oppenheimer I managed to attract them again. Lately, things at the box office have been very bad for films in general, and not only Furiosa. “Hopefully this June and July fever will end with an over-performance of at least one of the marquee films to put the wind back in the box office sails,” says Comscore’s Paul Dergarabedian. (Includes big movies coming in those months Inside out 2 And Deadpool Wolverine.) “Let’s see what happens next year with Mission: Impossible And in 2026 with the next star Wars says box office analyst Eric Handler of Roth Capital.

In the meantime, unless Furiosa Turns to a higher level, we can assume that Miller is planned next Mad Max The project, a movie called Max is in the wasteland That would explore what Max had been doing the previous year Road of angerProbably not going. If you want to change that, Furiosa Playing in theaters now.

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