Did Furiosa’s Poor Box Office Performance Get Another Mad Mad Movie Shelved? (Photo Credit – IMDb)
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After a surprisingly bad debut at the box office, George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga might have just ruined the chances of any other Mad Max sequels or prequels. As George Miller wrote Fury Road, he also worked on developing Furiosa and The Wastelands. But given the box office performance of Furiosa, it might have put a halt to the next Mad Max movie.
Forty-five years after George Miller introduced audiences to Mad Max, the auteur may have finally reached the end of the road through the postapocalyptic wasteland unless he can find redemption with his Mad Max films.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the highly regarded director’s film, opened to a poor $32 million domestically over the four-day Memorial Day weekend and $36.5 million internationally. This set back expectations for Mad Max: The Wasteland, another Max film that Miller has been kicking around for years.
While working on Mad Max: Fury Road, a 2015 Warner Bros. film that became an instant action classic, Miller and Nico Lathouris wrote the scripts for The Wasteland and Furiosa. Following Max Rockatansky in the year before Fury Road, The Wasteland is rumored to feature a young mother and, of course, a ton of action.
In recent weeks, Miller has admitted that a lot depended on Furiosa regarding The Wasteland’s potential. “I’ll definitely hold off on thinking about it until I see how this [Furiosa] goes,”
Miller addressed reporters on May 16, the day following the dystopian action-adventure’s seven-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. Although they emphasize that Wasteland wasn’t even in development, sources concur that Furiosa’s grossing performance has complicated the film’s future. Warners, where Miller is a highly regarded character, expresses its immense pride in Furiosa.
If Furiosa receives a major overhaul and enjoys a road trip down the box office highway, as Fury Road did, thanks to a strong multiplier. But the talk of producing Miller’s next Mad Max movie may resurface. However, several seasoned box office analysts question whether such a comeback is achievable. One rival studio speculated that it might struggle to surpass $90 million domestically.
With a budget of at least $157 million before marketing, Fury Road successfully revived the franchise. Replacing Gibson with Tom Hardy and introducing Charlize Theron’s Furiosa opened to $45.3 million domestically. Mad Max Fury Road grossed $379.4 million worldwide. Nevertheless, it had such a huge cultural impact that the previous Warner Bros. administration approved Furiosa. The reason was believed to be that it appeared the studio had a resurrected franchise in its hands and would be a way to pay tribute to Miller and Mad Max’s 45th anniversary.
So, will we get another Mad Max sequel? The chances are highly unlikely, but nothing is confirmed.
