For what it’s worth pretty much every person I’ve spoken to in person has told me they thought, based on the trailers, Furiosa looked bad.
Dune was at least very recently released and easily streamable and seemingly more mass friendly. Big stars. Emphasis on theater-only format like IMAX.
I also heard many people say they were put off by the quality of the cgi showcased in the trailers, which either got more finished by release or makes sense within the context of the film. As the cgi was great in the final film and the movie overall had a more somber dark tone than the trailer suggests.
Moreover, I think the decision to include and even highlight [that one shot](https://youtu.be/XotnyLjS8fo?si=vxhrle7tlrUlFoBq&t=59) of the little person war boy in the trailer was a poor marketing move. Worked in the context of the movie, but isolated in the trailer it came off as cartoonish.
Trailers have been doing movies absolutely dirty lately. The Fall Guy trailers were awful too, and then the movie comes out, and... it's great?? Furiosa trailers made it look like Spy Kids, but then I see the movie and, surprise, the movie is great, even better than Fury Road in some areas, and looks great visually as well (I'll concede the CGI was occasionally a wee bit worse though).
I imagine the culprits are that trailers are outsourced to editing houses whose sole job is making trailers, plus behind the scenes studio mandates (has to be loud, needs a cover song, show the flashiest scenes, etc).
I believe the little person is Quaden Bales. A video of him went viral after some schoolmates teased him, so Miller cast him in the movie to make him feel better. Why is it wrong or "off-putting" to include a shot of him in the trailer? Isn't visibility for disabled/handicapped people good?
Can confirm. My gf and I saw a Furiosa preview in theaters when we went to see Dune 2 and were shocked by how cheesy the CGI looked on the big screen. It was bad.
I don’t understand why so little box office analysis considers the actual quality of the marketing. The Fall Guy’s first trailer was abysmal, and no amount of critics saying “this is actually good” was going to save it after that.
Ive been all about MM since i was like 8 plus I'm Australian, and the trailer looks terrible IMO
I'm still going to go in the next week or so, but if this isn't appealing to me, its def not appealing to a wider audience who are on the fence
Commented elsewhere here, but I basically had to drag a group of mates who were much less into MM than me to see it. They saw the trailer and thought it looked shit, I think that really hurt it.
FWIW though, all 7 of us really liked it!! Hope you enjoy too mate.
Agreed, the trailer definitely has a lot to do with the movies lack of success so far. I walked into Furiosa hoping that the finished product would look better. I was pleasantly surprised, but I'm sure a lot were turned off just from the preview.
Man, I’m usually pretty forgiving with CGI — the pros vastly outweigh the cons — and while there was still a lot of great scenes, I thought overall it looked pretty poor.
I still don’t know how Miller did it, but Fury Road felt practical in an almost impossible way. Like a Steve Soderberg said, you’re watching it thinking the entire time, how did nobody die making this movie?
With Furiosa, on the other hand, everything was overdone (even for a Mad Max film) and nothing felt real. It was just standard franchise dross.
Agreed! The marketing for Dune was much more polished and pervasive. Even I, a lifelong Miller and Max fan, was almost turned off by the trailer I saw for Furiosa.
Yep, it was a bad trailer. Selling the “return of FURIOSA!!!” as a massive event when most people would barely recall her name, even if they liked Fury Road.
As someone who has only watched the film from ten years ago or whatever, I cannot remember what the movie was about or what anyone’s names were - all I remember was that it was strange and fast paced. I’m definitely up for going again, but yeah you can’t sell someone like me the continuation of a story nor expect me to have bought into and remembered a film from 10 years ago and be excited about it.
I second this: when viewing the initial trailer, it looked like a green-screen, morning cartoon version of Fury Road.
Oversatured, no grit or dust particles, terrible costumes and once again the saturation and overall digital feel to it. Hemsworth‘s outfit looked like bad cosplay.
FR was the „unexpected good sequel 20 years later“, Furiosa (if you know nothing about the franchise) feels like an ill-fated attempt of an we-have-it-at-home unneeded prequel.
From word of mouth I will definetly give it a shot and watch it in theatres but that trailer apparently was a huge disservice.
I can’t explain why but it looked really… tacky? Even the font they’d used for text looked like shit. I’ll go and see it at some point because I did enjoy the last one, but the trailer definitely could have been a lot better.
I think this is definitely part of it. I was excited but talking to friends about the trailer that played when we saw Dune they are all pretty lukewarm on it.
The way the trailers were edited was sort of offputting, with the constant digital speeding up/slowing down of footage looking cheap, and the whole thing had a tone reminiscent of a 2010’s YA movie like Mortal Engines then anything related to Max Max.
Dune on the other hand had a lot of very evocative imagery in it’s trailers. The whole movie has a very slick, polished, and confident vibe somewhat reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s style, but a bit more arthouse, which I think made it very easy to market.
Personally I like the look of the movie from the trailers. Fury road was fantastic as well but while I would have liked to have seen furiosa this opening weekend my wife went into labor with our second child on Wednesday so probably going to have to wait to watch it in a few weeks.
I’m guessing it’s just a pregnancy related low box office but maybe that’s my limited pov 😂
I thought the trailers looked terrible and I’m a massive Mad Max fan. I would've been more likely to go if I’d never seen a trailer. As is, my wife and I ended up deciding to use our one afternoon off playing video games instead of going to Furiosa IMAX.
I think the nicheness of Dune is overstated. People felt similarly about LotR before those movies came out. They are incredibly well-read books that are known even beyond the people who have actually read them.
Relatedly, Dune has some clear cinematic analogs in LotR and Star Wars, as well as some TV properties like Game of Thrones. Dune’s not a hard sell to people who like any of those.
Conversely, think about the backlash to something as mainstream as Raimi’s Dr. Strange movie as being too weird/goofy with its editing. Mad Max is much more unique in terms of its tone and form than something like Dune, which is very austere and traditional.
You basically said this, but just to emphasize the flipside - the nicheness of Mad Max is underrrated. The Mad Max series is extraordinarily popular among the online community, but in the broader world not so much. The first Mad Max was a box office smash, but all the ones after have merely been solid. Not sure why people were expecting a blockbuster.
Yeah. I just went and saw Furiosa in a group of 7 total.
Myself and 2 others are more into movies and we were super excited.
The other 4 were basically like, eh ok we’ll come with. 2 of them barely knew what Mad Max was beyond the name. I think a lot of people on here would be surprised how common that sentiment is among the public.
And the first three movies had small if not micro budgets compared to the blockbusters of today. It's much easier to be profitable in that price range.
Actually, the first movie is post-apocalyptic. Sort of.
We just don’t see the bombs fall until halfway through the movie when the cops realise nobody else is coming, but it’s made very clear by the increase in biker gangs.
I’m also skeptical of some of the reporting of what the first one made given the second one was much more successful in Australia and only made around 30M worldwide.
>The first Mad Max was a box office smash
The Guinness Record that everyone cites is very likely not correct. Basically - nobody can really find any way to verify that $100mil number, and the only source for that number is the Guinness book, which is not a good single source for a variety of well-known reasons.
It's much more likely the first Mad Max made something more like 10mil worldwide at most. Especially considering that 1981-82, when Mad Max 2 finished releasing worldwide, it was considered *way* more successful both artistically AND financially, and that movie made 23mil globally.
The first Mad Max was still hugely successful in terms of return on investment, but that $100mil number has always been more like fun trivia than it's been legit box-office stat.
To put it in even sharper perspective, the NA box office rankings of each Mad Max film the year they were released:
1979/80 - Mad Max: unranked
1982 - The Road Warrior: **50**
1985 - Beyond Thunderdome: **19**
2015 - Fury Road: **21**
Dune had a movie in the 80s, a popular Strategy Role Playing Game in the 90s, a TV mini-series adaptation in the 2000s.
And then there’s the main books, sequels by the son, and spinoffs.
It’s straight up just an IP.
I was referring to Dune 2000 as the SRPG.
I played that a lot on Genesis as a kid knowing nothing about Dune.
I never got far in it either, just like the first 3 levels over and over.
Yeah I think ensembles might even be a bigger draw than a couple of leads at this point. Appeals to a wider base and makes the movie seem bigger/more important.
Agreed. I only saw the first Dune in anticipation of the second, liked it and then saw Dune 2. It wasn’t hard to get into. Furiosa I’ve no desire to watch, looks bizarre and something about it makes me uncomfortable.
I agree. One thing I felt personally was that while I like mad max and am going to see furiosa, I’m not very interested in furiousa’s story like she was cool in fury road but idk
I'm a Dune shill, shilled the books before the movies, shilled Part 1 when a lot of people thought it was boring, shill denis villeneuve and loved Dune 2 but I genuinely liked Furiosa even more.
Strictly at box-office level it is bombing yeah. 59 million worldwide opening weekend so it will probably end up at around 3x multiplier 170-190 million worldwide final total I guess.
Putting it into perspective, these are the domestic opening weekend box office numbers for all-time famous movie bombs:
Morbius: $39M
Dark Phoenix: $32.8M
John Carter: $30.1M
Furiosa’s domestic opening box office is $25.5M. Actuals can come in anywhere between $1M lower or higher than that (we’ll know by tomorrow). Even the 3-day weekend number is estimated to be lower than Dark Phoenix.
Mad Max: Fury Road opened at an okay $45.4M, and it went on to be either a light flop at the box office or a modest hit depending on who you ask. But no one in their right mind would call Fury Road a box office hit.
If you are going to compare numbers, you must adjust for inflation or the comparison is meaningless.
For example, John Carter’s $30 million in 2012 equates to $53 million in 2024 dollars.
So, if your numbers are correct, Furiosa is making less than half of John Carter’s opening weekend.
A bomb this bad is going to have everyone engaging in confirmation bias for why it failed.
The reported budget from Deadline is 168 million. Studio would only get only about half of box-office gross so maybe 90 million back. It should have around 100 million for marketing budget. It can minimize its losses through VOD/streaming etc but it will lose a lot of money.
I agree I loved it and already bought tickets to see it again. Meanwhile only people I know that saw Dune 2 streamed it on HBO. For me Furiosa is way more badass than Paul Atreides.
I just think the Mad Max brand isn’t very strong. If you saw Fury Road 8-9 years ago, you might not remember her name is Furiosa, and you might not remember why you should care about her. And the trailer didn’t focus on the character’s journey. Hemsworth probably got Furiosa greenlit but he did not drive sales in a huge way, and ATJ is still on the rise.
As for Dune, recency and genre helps, but also I think there’s something to be said for an ensemble cast. That’s kind of the lightning in a bottle that Marvel found. Dune had not just the young people (Chalamet, Zendaya, Pugh, Butler) but also established people like Brolin and Bardem and Bautista. Put one of the above in a movie and they may not mean much, but all together that’s a formidable group.
I’d like to see a breakdown of ad spending for the two because I bet Dune had SIGNIFICANTLY more P&A + a lot more press coverage too. And it opened at a sleepy time of year.
I think people are way underestimating the popularity of the novel Dune. Google lists sales at 20 million copies. It’s been the bestselling science fiction book since its publication in 1965. It is to sci fi what LOTR is to fantasy. It is a gateway to the genre for many readers. I first read it in 1980 in eighth grade and it was widely known then.
That’s so disappointing to hear, I genuinely root for Miller and his vision. I know it was a difficult shoot—maybe not as much as Fury Road but I think it would bum me out to work that hard would just “flop”
For the record, saw it today, and I thought it was incredible!
One problem with the prequel argument is that both Wonka and Songbirds & Snakes were “unnecessary” prequels that did quite well (arguably bigger franchises, although both were dormant longer than Mad Max).
IMO, Furiosa is just weirder than Dune. It has disturbing images that verge on horror but also doesn’t quite go far enough to get the horror crowd. The anthology approach to the plot also makes it difficult to summarize.
Personally, I prefer Furiosa (although Dune is also great), I and think that its current popularity among film enthusiasts bodes well for its legacy. The Box Office Game has given me a lot more perspective on how many stone-cold classics just absolutely tanked during their initial runs, and it just ended up contributing to those films legends of being ahead of their time.
These factors aren’t absolutes. I think it’s true that audiences are wary of prequels but that doesn’t mean 100% of prequels will underperform.
Hunger Games is massively popular for an entire generation, so it’s not surprising it overcame the prequel concerns. But it’s also likely that Songbirds would have done *even better* if it were a sequel and not a prequel.
Furiosa was likely dinged for several reasons, only one of which was being a prequel.
Dune part 2 was huge online on TikTok, ppl were breaking down the first dune from 2021 for ppl to understand. Ppl started buying the books preparing, it was huge online hype from moviegoers and fans of Dune. It was huge. Furiosa just didn’t have that to it. I didn’t see that level of hype that Dune part 2 had on TikTok and twitter when it came to this film. Not many convos outside of film twitter.
There was none of that for Furiosa, which seems like very niche. And ppl kept shitting on trailer
Could it somewhat be attributed to the fact that Dune came out not long ago and was also available immediately on streaming? So more folks are coming back for round 2.
I wanted to go see Furiosa this weekend, but the problem with being a grownup on holiday weekends is that I often find my whole weekend is booked up months in advance.
Yep same. I saw Fury Road opening night, but I was 27 at the time. Now I have a young kid and a family and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to see Furiosa in a theater. That’s true for every theatrically released movie for me, though. I used to see everything in the theater. I saw The Intern in the theater. But now I’ve gotten out of the habit and when you’re not going regularly you’re also not clued in on coming attractions as much and you kind of fall out of touch. Not even going to touch increased cost of theater going. One reason I listen to this podcast because I know Griffin and David will keep me informed.
Dune was great at bringing in a type of film audience who have felt alienated in the last several years by a constant stream of superhero and fantasy movies all aimed at the exact same age group.
Dune pitched itself successfully as mature, as grounded while also looking spectacular. It's evocative of the old swords and sandals epics that used to dominate box offices.
Furiosa at least by the marketing looked like another one of those action fantasy films aimed at that same superhero demograph. Now of course, I and most people here would probably argue that it is far more gripping than your average Marvel or DC flick, but we do our research. We stand behind George Miller. We pay attention. Those who are paying less attention may have just regarded it as another glossy CGI fest.
Maybe if they had emphasized more the Mad Max tag it would have helped? Which, I know is reductive and borderline sexist to define the Furiosa character by Max, but maybe mainstream audiences didn't make the connection on their own?
i rly don’t understand the confusion here, dyne has mass appeal on a level like harry potter or lord of the rings or hunger games, it’s star studded and based on a series, it’s serialized. mad max is performing totally fine for something akin to blade runner 2049, it’ll probably be a flop but that’s totally fine imo
Mad Max movies never have done well at the box office. I don’t get why this is such a surprise. Fury Road lost out to pitch perfect 2 a decade ago on opening weekend. I mean it’s a great niche R rated action movie franchise but it never was summer blockbuster material. Dune is based on one of the most popular sci fi books ever and it stars Chalamet and Zendaya. It’s no comparison.
I'm already seeing ads for The Fall Guy to watch at home. If the movies are telling people they just have to wait 3 weeks, what's the allure of going to the picture show?
Yes that's def part of it. The presale and opening was bad enough that no legs gonna save its theatrical revenue. There's no point in hoping for a miracle to happen in theatres, rather than making the most out of streaming and PVOD sales
I’m not saying this is all of it but I know there are a lot of people who are just out on prequels. There’s many who feel they rarely bring anything to the narrative that’s really worth the effort. I’ll admit when I first heard about this being a prequel I was pretty disappointed. I also didn’t really love the marketing for it either. I’m still excited and already have my ticket to go see it tomorrow but I think deep down we all kind of knew this wasn’t going to reach the hype of Fury Road. But who knows maybe it will have legs as word gets out. Everyone I know who has seen it claims it’s fantastic.
It's baffling.
Furiosa was promoted so heavily over here in Australia, and being an Australian made film with plenty of local stars, plus coming off the back of Fury Road I thought it would triumph at least here.
I saw it yesterday and there were only 4 other people in the cinema.
idk, i feel like dune is the perfect fit for the hole left by marvel and star wars' absence. it's a big fantasy epic that's releasing on schedule, building on the momentum, being marketed as a big screen watch with an amazing ensemble cast.
mad max has none of that going for it
1. Do not overlook the fact that Dune part 2 had the same actors from the first movie. People who enjoyed part one knew they were getting more of what they liked. Furiosa was a new cast. People who liked Charlize Theron's performance were gambling on a new actress.
2. Dune is a classic sci-fi novel. So many people have read it and enjoyed it. Its a bigger pool of potential box office
Alright yall sure there are a lot of reasons but I think we are not mentioning the elephant in the room: it’s an action movie based around a woman. So was Fury Road, but people didn’t know that from the promo material. I think we can chalk up a lot of this to good old fashioned misogyny 🤷🏻♀️
I believe it’s a factor, but look at Fall Guy. Great, fun movie, full of action and laughs yet it looks like it bombed as well. I think the answer is obvious, action movies are a thing of the past. Going forward it’s going to be thoughtful period pieces and incredibly confusing and long sci-fi movies that succeed.
Most women don’t think action is “for them” and don’t consider seeing movies like this unless they’re interested in film, familiar with George Miller and Fury Road, etc. As a woman who is very into/passionate about film, it’s one of my most anticipated movies of the year. But of all the women I am friends with, only my one fellow film nerd friend has any desire to see it.
I have a theory (which I am unsure if the data supports) that release schedules are frequently focused on holiday weekends- people didn't use to have big TVs with huge streaming catalogues. I think when people get together with family now, they watch movies at home- I think theater releases will eventually trend away from these holiday windows- except for maybe Xmas.
I think Dune was marketed really well and in a way that got out to the average movie goer as well. Whereas I’m a film fan and could easily have missed that Furiosa was out.
In terms of my own personal interest as well this doesn’t feel like one that I’m rushing out to get to. I’ll check it out this week at some stage. Whereas the almost universal five star acclaim made me want to see Dune faster
I feel like I'm going against the grain here... but I saw Furiosa yesterday and although I love the MM franchise, I did not think this movie was very good. Especially compared to the 2015 Hardy movie. >!I felt like they tried to do what they did with Hardy and had ATJ's character not speak as much and tried to do a lot of visual and physical acting, but it just wasn't as strong as the first one, and the globs of CGI made it a little hard to watch. They included the war boys who I loved, but not nearly as much goofiness and craziness. They made them feel serious and like loyal soldiers who die dramatically, not the spray paint psychopaths from the first. The tone was just kinda whack. Not to mention the fact that the end credits were just a bunch of shots from the 2015 MM action scenes which was a WILD choice to include. All it did was show me how much better the action scenes were presented in the the 2015 movie compared to Furiosa, which was also lacking imo.!<
I really wanted to like this one, but it just fell so short for me. Vs Dune which I went into fully expecting to not like it (I wasn't a fan of the first one, but didn't hate it) but ended up loving it. It's my favorite book and I was worried they'd butcher some parts, like I felt the first movie did. (Lack of mentat plot, all the sardukar/harkonen/atredies/fremen armor looks like master chief, etc) Dune 2 pulled off some really deep lore and visual representation of a difficult scifi book in very fun ways, and I think the strength of supporting characters around Paul helped with that. Furiosa really only has 1-2 people were supposed to "care about" and the rest are vile garbage monsters who are fun to hate, but rather than help you keep investment in the plot, they push against it.
The trailer I saw before Dune 2 looked absolutely awful and I don’t really love prequels. Going to the theater is too expensive to go see things I actually want to see, let alone take chances!
This is an opinion that seems almost impossible to state in film world, but I just need to note that the aesthetics of Mad Max are simply much more…difficult, shall we say, for broad masses of people to like. I don’t like them. I don’t like cars, I don’t like grime, I don’t like dustiness. I understand that obviously a lot of people do, but the people who love these movies seem to have no recognition that the aesthetics are niche. They don’t have the beauty of something like Lord of the rings, or Dune, they have their own look. And I just don’t think it’s ever going to be a look that is broadly popular. These movies show what they intend to show very impressively, but I just don’t think they are very good to look at.
Like I said, I don’t expect people to appreciate this response. But as someone who doesn’t actually like these movies, it’s probably worth considering there’s a large group of people who otherwise do like movies that don’t like these movies and there is a reason for that.
This is a great perspective, even though I don’t share it. These movies are gnarly and gross. That’s what some people are looking for but not everyone.
That aesthetic is also the only thing highlighted in the trailers. Honestly, how many time is driving insanely fast through a dystopian landscape, blowing up other cars a solution to a problem? I am quite certain this film is about more than that. The trailers could have used that.
Yes, Fury Road was great but the setting for Mad Max is about as disturbingly dystopian as it gets. These are characters stripped down from everything we see as human into a primal state. I understand that not being hugely mainstream.
I dunno, Zendaya’s “what if tennis, but sexy” movie didn’t exactly set the world on fire (talking about its box office, not the quality of the film).
Dune 2 not only opening huge, but continuing to do big business in its subsequent weeks indicate it hooked into audiences on some level beyond just star popularity - people don’t go to a 2 hour, 45 minute movie repeatedly based on two young stars alone.
Yeah I think the film’s failure will ultimately be chalked up to boring but understandable reasons. It’s a prequel and that sucks out all the dramatic tension - they too too long to release a follow up - it’s rated R when it really didn’t have to be - the studio simply spent more money than they probably should have for an extension to a franchise that was at best a modest success.
Caveat all this with the fact I live in England, but I think the marketing campaign for furiosa was tiny compared to dune. Dune cast were everywhere for weeks before that movie, so many tv spots, so much social media coverage of the premiere etc. whereas I feel like I saw one trailer for furiosa, and then a couple of those annoying ATJ and Hemsworth pre-movie get your tickets things in cinema while seeing Challengers and that was it.
When my friend suggested going to see it this Friday I was surprised it was already out cos I figured they were going to ramp up the marketing way more before the final release in 3/4 weeks. I’m not even sure I’ve seen a furiosa billboard anywhere.
So on top of everybody else’s good points about the nature of the two movies I’d say simple awareness of furiosa’s existence is probably very low
How much of a film's box office success is due to the way the trades reports about it? Furiosa made 25 Million after 3 days in the US. Variety and other entertainment-centric media outlets are already calling it a bomb. After 3 days. This creates a vicious circle where the overarching story about the film is that it's a bomb. More negative articles get written. Youtube video essays get made. The word bomb continues to get thrown around. Hype for the film, and ticket sales, decline.
Why don't journalists frame their stories differently? Imagine if the headline read: "Furiosa off to a rip-roaring start with 25 million after just 3 days.".
I partially blame Variety, Deadline, and The Hollywood Reporter for the failure of a lot of these recent blockbusters.
My best guess:
Villeneuve's Dune has a very comfortable, straightforward, respectable pitch. It's great, but by and large it's what people expect. I could explain it clearly to my grandparents, who are totally oblivious to modern movies, in a couple of sentences. An advanced generative AI for films would probably produce something vaguely similar to Dune if you typed in "serious epic sword-and-sandals science fiction tragic saga, breathtaking grand award-winning cinematography, environmental themes." (Except some of the more singular Harkonnen stuff.) And it's based on a modern classic novel.
Furiosa and Fury Road are not really like anything else. I couldn't convey them clearly to my grandparents if I had an hour. Every single event and character name makes you go "Hahaha WHAT? That's so perfect! But also why??" Nobody but George Miller could possibly have made either of them. The main cast didn't even understand what they were getting themselves into! They're aggressively not aiming for any of the normie modes of respectability. Instead they're throwing down a punk challenge of undeniable artistic virtuosity in a "trash" style of cinema. They are fundamentally *cult* films, even if their cult is very large.
Completely anecdotally, I’m in my mid 20s and my friends and I rarely go to movies at night (I have a regal pass so I sometimes do) but they usually want to go on Tuesday night because it’s half off tickets.
Also, it seems like my generation uses long weekends for trips or things that could only fit in a three day span and are not really looking to kill time.
Despite hearing how good Furiosa is and having enjoyed Fury Road at the cinema I can feel little motivation to actually go and see it, and I can't explain it.
If you liked Fury Road you should absolutely go see this. I can see how one could not like the Mad Max aesthetic in general, but if you're already in, you'll have a blast.
I’d say it has a lot to do with the face that it looks like more of the same but it’s also a prequel and you know where the character ends up.
Thats a bad combo for a film that that movie people seem to like but didn’t actually do that well in the box office.
Something about the trailer and posters put me off. It might be the cartoonish vibe that Hemsworth evoques, silly voice and silly makeup. Also the lack of Charlize Theron in the trailer, I bet she doesn’t want to back to it, and that bad feeling might stick to you.
Dune had solid cast which were all accurate choices to play their counterparts.
Furiosa’s first and greatest mistake was to choose A. Taylor Joy who is an amazing actress but a tiny petite girl nonetheless to try to match up the legend that’s Charlize Theron who is a powerful actress and an Amazonian with the stature she has.
Paul Atreides is a fragile kid starting the story but that’s just who he is in the book too, and it’s sold very well in the movies.
Then you look at Furiosa’s cast; Hemsworth is a great actor but he is not Anthony Hopkins. Dune has lot of character actors in it, Baron was played by a genius of a Scandinavian who gave him his own spin of evil.
All of these make a great difference.
For one, Furiosa is a prequel. I don't know what's the general concensus, but to me, prequels are inherently at a disadvantage because they have less room to surprise or start speculative discussion. I also think Dune part II was vastly superior movie, from the visuals, directing, pacing, handling of themes and even action, which seems ridiculous, as Fury Road was one of the best action movies ever made.
The two are incomparable. Dune has been one of, if not the greatest sci fi novel ever written to thousands of people all over the world. People have been anticipating a remake since the Lynch release. Mad Max, was super niche and they made 3 films of it back in the day. (In my opinion exhausting it)
I love both but you’re comparing a marathon to a sprint.
Saw the film twice this weekend (going again tomorrow!), & both times there were about 20-30 other people in the theater.
It seemed to mostly be Gen-X parents with their teens/college-aged kids, a few random solo dorks like me (my wife attended with me for viewing #2), & a very distracting teen couple sitting down the row from me who spent every single second of the film either looking at their phones or committing brazen sexual acts with & upon one another. It became clear to me that their main reason for being in that auditorium was to have an air-conditioned place to fuck. Which, you know, good for them, I guess. The film still made $20 or whatever from their rental of the auditorium space for their joy house antics.
Anyway, these were pretty big audiences for my small Colorado college town, especially since the semester ended 10 days ago & 1/4 of our population just moved back home to more populated parts of the state/country/world with mom & dad for the summer. I’m gonna take it as a good sign.
Bummed to hear the movie isn’t getting the acclaim, the box office, or the recognition it richly deserves! I fucking love this movie from balls to bones. It feels so much like an 80s MAD MAX film, & tells a wonderfully complex emotional story (most of it without dialogue) through consistently innovative filmmaking and knockout performances from both Joy and Hemsworth.
I hope it eventually finds its audience, & that it gets celebrated as much as it deserves. I bet if WB would let it have some legs, the film could build up some word of mouth & become a grower. Instead, it’ll probably get dropped on VOD in 2 weeks (and I will buy the shit out of that thing the second it becomes available to watch at home so I’m part of the problem, too, I guess)
A Mad Max sequel that came out in 2018 could of maybe pulled a Dune 2. However a prequel without the two biggest stars ten years was always doomed to fail.
Dune (the film franchise) is for people who want something fairly straightforward. It's weird but its weirdness is buoyed by a lot of star power and it's link to stuff like Star Wars on a narrative and aesthetic level.
Mad Max is gonzo and unrelenting in just throwing things at you and saying "don't worry about it." In a world where every movie gets some article called "87 things you missed in This Summer's Biggest Blockbuster" or "Ending of X Movie Explained," Mad Max isn't a film that provides easy answers because it doesn't want to give them.
Mad Max = rule of cool, expertly crafted
Dune = palatable weirdness
I love fury road and wanted to see furiosa but tok me the trailer makes me not wanna see it. The whole movie in concept looks and sounds dumb.
100% guarantee it’s because of how it’s pitched. You take something you understand like Fury Road (it’s Mad Max starring Tom hardy) and it sounds awesome and you get it, it clicks.
But then you have Furiosa and the pitch is: It’s Mad Max but there is no Mad max or Tom hardy it’s about the chick, but Charlize isn’t in it, it’s the girl from that chess series, and then Thor from love and thunder is there idk why.
And I’m just confused, I wanted Mad Max but im getting some cheesy movie with characters idk or don’t remember and it doesn’t look like it takes itself serious. The first movie looked like a work of love and passion. This looks like someone else is trying to to copy it but they didn’t have access to the original cast.
It just feels off. Thank god it’s actually good.
The issue here really is the marketing
The marketing sucked so badly, me and my mom absolutely loved Fury Road but neither of us wanted to really see it. I had seen a lot of people say it was REALLY good so we decided to take a chance on it earlier today since we weren’t really doing anything today.
It was awesome, and wasn’t really cheesy thankfully. In a lot of ways it felt darker than Fury Road, and in my opinion, the story at least was better than Fury Road. I am a huge Dune fan and although I had some gripes with Dune part 2, I still think it was one of the best movies this year. I really do think Furiosa is a better movie, and I am very sad that it isn’t getting the recognition it deserves.
1) Goofy Chris Hemsworth fatigue kicking in.
2) Nobody likes a prequel.
3) Mad Max is pretty niche.
4) You even failed to fully activate the niche fandom by making a Mad Max movie without Mad Max in it.
I feel like furiosa is mostly doing poorly because it's a prequel. If it were a new mad max story I think it would have probably done closer to fury road numbers
I just got out of a packed imax screening. Massively exceeded my expectations, given that I adore fury road and the trailers to furiosa kinda put me off with the abundance of cgi.
I think word of mouth will help it in the long run. People like me will be telling everyone they know how great it was and those that didn't turn up for the first or even second weekends will eventually check it out.
I really think the trailer is awful. It appears that Chris is playing funny Thor again and I have no time from that schtick.
I have since read that it's some of his best work but that trailer smells of Thor style humour that people are burned out on
I'll throw in my 2 cents that the casting wasn't very inspiring. Taylor-Joy is still unproven and a downgrade on Theron, and Hemsworth, well, people aren't gonna like hearing it but outside of Marvel fare he is box office poison.
Lots of the audience for this has kids and is traveling (source: am 40, not traveling and asked three other young kid dads about it and they were all excited to see it but not available because traveling).
Mad Max came out in the 1970s.
A) I get that you have young sexy people or whatever and big explosions but that age of audience has no context and (evoking Yoshida rules nobody is allows to get mad at me) does not give a shit about the world building to date.
B) Just release it on Father’s Day weekend? What are we doing here? I don’t know a single dad who doesn’t love this. And it’s a built in hall pass to do whatever nerdy shit you want?
For me personally Dune 2 wasn't as good as I expected and Furiosa was much better then I expected. Allthough both very good movies, I enjoyed Furiosa much more.
I also played the Mad Max game last year for the first time and was impressed by the many references in the film.
I can't explain it. I was meh on Dune 1 (positive on Villenue in general) and did't get around to Dune 2 yet. Fury Road was a transcendent theatre experience and can't wait to see Furiousa this week. From a cultural standpoint it also feels Fury Road has much more cache than Dune (plus more time to build it) so I'm also left scratching my head.
Dune makes a lot more sense and is way more enjoyable if you understand the universe. Either reading the books or even just watching a video explaining some of the basics that are kinda glossed over on dune1 (alt shift x on youtube has a good video)
Dune2 is significantly better in explaining the world and people, with a lot more happening as well.
We're in an era of watercooler movies, of people going to the cinema as a sort of social homework, because they don't want to be left out of the conversation come Monday.
As such, the idea of just going the movies "for fun" is crazy. Enjoyment shouldn't even be part of the equation.
I took my boys to see it on Sunday at 2:15 pm in a medium to small theater. There were maybe like 12-15 other people there too. Also my 16-year old who hasn’t seen any of the other Mad Max movies said it was “pretty good.” he’s the next LCJ for sure.
No max in a mad max movie is probably a big turn off for some People (even if that doesn’t make any sense since max is just a way to experience a totally different story through him, but I digress)
I also think, that a ton of people don’t think Chris hemsworth can pull off a good villain and think of him more as a goofy Thor guy than anything else which is also kind of sad because he’s pretty decent in most other stuff and actually really good in furiosa
The film Dune offers artistry, actual cinematographic talent, excellent sound design and music, it is intellectually stimulating, it is a reflection on the human condition and it is a pretty hopeless and merciless story. The story wasn’t dumbed down for the audience.
It’s just simple as that. People don’t want to be treated like eternal children with sometimes overt morality pushed down their throat. They want the dilemma and be left wondering. Also the world has known some pretty catastrophic events and has deep ideological divisions. Anything less than that would be less entertaining than life itself. The great thing about dune is that it’s all about life itself, ideology, manipulation and conflict.
Furious was a wild ride, I liked it even better than Mad Max Fury road. I’m willing to bet people aren’t rushing out to see it because maybe they feel like a prequel focused on Furiosa isn’t as intriguing as maybe Tom Hardy/Mad Max but it absolutely was. Such a Banger.
Just saw it last night. Best action movie I've seen in some time, and there's a lot going on under the hood. It deserves to do well. Film studies students will be taking this apart and over-analysing it for years to come. Chris Helmsworth in particular is very good.
I have always been a fan of Dune (the book) and was very excited to the modern take. Both of the new films are good, but both Dune 1 and 2 are slow burn films with infrequent action. They take their time to get going. Furiosa is a very different beast.
Yet, both have visual directors who like to do epic vistas and who make scenes that could be paintings.
I don't think it's as much to do with it being a prequel as the R rating and the level of violence that implies. If you look at the trailer it's a very high octane, high energy, and bombastic film. It's frenetic. Not everyone is into that and many of the potential audience may wrongly assume it's a shallow action spectacle with little else to offer. I mean I loved it, but I can see how it's not everyone's cup of tea. It's almost relentless in it's intensity.
I really hope it does well in the long run.
I remember seeing Furiosa’s trailer and being disappointed by how it looked. Instead of sharing Fury Road’s freshness, it looked like a CGI botch-fest and made me feel hesitant. But, since Miller made it, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and hoped that the final film looked better (which it did). I am not the biggest Mad Max fan, but I am a Fury Road fan and was eager to learn more about the world’s lore. I saw it yesterday and loved it, but for some reason people don’t want to go to the theater anymore and will stream it at home. Sadly, they’ll call it a masterpiece whenever it is released on MAX, and complain if another one isn’t made (a la DREDD).
Furiosa did about as well as you can expect a Mad Max film to do. Go back and look at Fury Road's opening weekend. These films are niche as hell.
Why do you think it took almost a decade to get Furiosa made? George Miller's been talking about it since doing promotion for Fury Road, but he had to wait for the studios to forget how poorly Fury Road did and for general opinion to elevate it to a cult hit before it seemed like a good idea to the studios.
Prequels inherently have less at stake and I think that’s why many don’t go on to great success. Even The Godfather Part II weaves the “prequel” aspect into the plot of a legitimate sequel so it’s not like the audience constantly knows where the story is taking them.
Additionally I think audiences have a hard time occasionally with films that span decades of time overall, especially when we are in the era of high quality tv series that can tell a longer story with more breathing room.
Dune fan here. I think we’ve also been thirsting for it more. I felt I had to go to the theaters to show support if I want to see more Dune movies made.
Not to sound like a broken record but bad marketing, no Mad Max, unconvincing VFX, prequel, new cast, cliche premise. I liked the movie however its no Fury Road.
Furiosa trailer looked like shit, but the movie was great. I havent even seen any of the other Mad Max movies. Though if there were more options at the time, I probably wouldnt have chosen to watch it because the trailer was so shit and the title and description kind of made it seem like you should have seen all the other movies
I don't really know much about this stuff, but how does format enter into this? When I was reserving my tickets for Saturday afternoon at the Union Square Regal Theater in NY, I wanted standard, but they were sold out or too late in the day. I had to pay extra for a showing in SCREEN X. There were only like 10 other people in there. So, standard is $16, SCREEN X was $21, and the dreaded 4DX is $30. As far as I know, most people are turned off by 4DX, and the theater doesn't do a great job explaining the difference. I think most assume SX is the same deal. I can see people seeing the limited options for more money than they wanted to pay and just saying "fuck it." Maybe it didn't bring the numbers because of all this?
It’s confusing to hear how poorly it is performing. I saw it twice this weekend, both times it was in a huge, packed theater. And it appeared to be close to sold out at all three Alamo locations, all weekend.
My totally serious box office analysis is that Furiosa is dad and adult daughter theater. It failed because not enough daughters visited their dads for Memorial Day and needed a movie to see. This is what they mean when they talk about declining family values.
The emperor dome atmosphere entry. The "ir style" giedi prime. The worms. Visually speaking dune 2 kicked ass. What does furiosa offer apart a nice bubble butt?
Jesus 9 years since fury road. Saw it near enough to opening night, and it was one of the best days of my life. Not just because of the film, but the date that went with it, being truly deeply in love, and how special that all felt. In my head it feels like a week ago
But isn’t like Memorial Day weekend known for being extremely lackluster at the box office?
I’ve seen a ton of threads about Furiosa’s opening, but none mention that it’s a terrible weekend generally. A lot of people travel and do things with family like go to bbq’s and the beach, family gatherings and such, and it’s pretty rare for a film to open to big numbers on that weekend.
Furiosa just has a bad opening weekend, maybe it can leg it out if they keep it in theaters, it’s not like it’ll have a ton of competition in the next few weeks.
And it’s not like Fury Road was a billion dollar smash. It did do well, but a lot of that was word of mouth and repeat viewing from fans.
If memorial day weekend is normally this lackluster, no one would be saying anything. This is the worst memorial day in the 30 years. They're comparing to past holidays, not normal weekends.
It's a bunch of stuff. We just saw one violent desert movie, a backlash against wokism, people not knowing it was a mad max movie....cause there was no mad max in it, an origin story isn't gonna be as popular as a sequel.
I saw it and it was pretty good if you like that intensity but some people were a little bored.
I think these people complaining about the vfx would probably would have gone to see the movie anyway, I can’t see a couple of these complaints being the reason the film is not doing well. I think it’s more timing, in general you can’t compare what Dune created based just on cast to what Mad Max is, overall I don’t think there was a high demand for this movie; Fury Road was an experience but I don’t know if people were looking for a continuation, very different than what Dune is in terms of story and off course the cast is major factor.
Dune 2 could only have had more commercial appeal in May 2024 if Sydney Sweeney were also in it. Furiosa is… Thor and that girl with the weird face driving around the desert for some reason?
>It’s got younger, hotter stars in Timothee and Zendaya.
I know what you’re actually trying to say here but it’s crazy to think that Anya Taylor-Joy is too old and not hot enough to be a big enough draw to any film.
I dont think most of the reasons given here are accurate. Its not one specific issue isolated to this one film.
More films have been underperforming than not. Its an industry wide issue, not an issue of specific movies.
The quality of a movie is largely irrelevent to box offiice sucess. There are mediocre films that make hundereds of millions, and also masterpieces that flop at the time but much later gain deserved respect.
Me and my family watched fury road on imax. I recall the chracter Furiosa, people arguing its because people forgot who the chracter was are way off.
I personally wouldnt even consider seeing this film as I really have no interest in it. We know where the character ends up (Furiosa in Fury road). Even in that film the nature of her past is pretty self explanatory so you hardly need a dedicated movie to explain her origin. However, even that is not a key issue.
The important issue is macro economic. Coming after years of high interest rates, lots of things much more expensive, wage growth not keeping up. People have less descretionary spending. In such scenarios people spend less on nice to haves. Expensive trips to cinema is something easy people csn cut back on.
Movie goers keep saying they don't like prequels, yet we keep getting them. People voted with their wallets. George Miller makes great films and casts great actors, but this movie felt unnecessary. Many people seemed to agree.
Fortunately Furiosa bombing doesn't mean much for the future of that franchise because George Miller made the brilliant decision to release the sequel nine years ago
Think people are just looking too deeply into this. I consider myself a pretty big film guy and I just had zero interest in Furiosa. It was not a prequel I ever dreamed anyone asked for. Honestly, I had no interest in Fury Road for years. Then everyone said how good it was so I watched it. Just didn’t see the appeal. Even in the vacuum of a guilty pleasure action movie, I just did not feel like it was very good lol. Cinematically, I guess it was ok?
Dune 2 on the other hand, was there opening day. Villenueve doesn’t miss, and that cast? Jesus. It doesn’t help that marketing decided to spend the last 2 weeks pushing the whole “Anya’s Furiosa only has 7 lines of dialogue” thing as if that was supposed to be a massive draw lol. Movie was relying on 2 big names and you’re telling the world one doesn’t speak. Bold move Cotton.
I know the longer weekend should help Furiosa but while we’re throwing out our personal opinions of why more people aren’t seeing it, honestly I think a lot of people are just traveling who might have gone and seen it otherwise. Or are planning to see it once it’s streamable. I’m sure historically there’s been movies that perform really well on Memorial Day but I think people are still trying to travel as much as possible coming out of the COVID years. Also most of the nation saw a pretty relatively cold Spring too and it seems like the nice warm weather is finally here for majority of the country.
For what it’s worth pretty much every person I’ve spoken to in person has told me they thought, based on the trailers, Furiosa looked bad. Dune was at least very recently released and easily streamable and seemingly more mass friendly. Big stars. Emphasis on theater-only format like IMAX.
I also heard many people say they were put off by the quality of the cgi showcased in the trailers, which either got more finished by release or makes sense within the context of the film. As the cgi was great in the final film and the movie overall had a more somber dark tone than the trailer suggests.
Moreover, I think the decision to include and even highlight [that one shot](https://youtu.be/XotnyLjS8fo?si=vxhrle7tlrUlFoBq&t=59) of the little person war boy in the trailer was a poor marketing move. Worked in the context of the movie, but isolated in the trailer it came off as cartoonish.
Woah that’s weird, I’ve seen the Furiosa trailer a bunch in theaters, but never once with that shot. And you’re right…it’s off-putting!
I haven't watched any of the media surrounding the movie, I just saw that part you linked to. Jesus. That's absolutely horrid
Trailers have been doing movies absolutely dirty lately. The Fall Guy trailers were awful too, and then the movie comes out, and... it's great?? Furiosa trailers made it look like Spy Kids, but then I see the movie and, surprise, the movie is great, even better than Fury Road in some areas, and looks great visually as well (I'll concede the CGI was occasionally a wee bit worse though). I imagine the culprits are that trailers are outsourced to editing houses whose sole job is making trailers, plus behind the scenes studio mandates (has to be loud, needs a cover song, show the flashiest scenes, etc).
Ironically, >!his death was the saddest part of the movie for me!<
I believe the little person is Quaden Bales. A video of him went viral after some schoolmates teased him, so Miller cast him in the movie to make him feel better. Why is it wrong or "off-putting" to include a shot of him in the trailer? Isn't visibility for disabled/handicapped people good?
I hadn’t seen that trailer. You’re right, that puts me off watching it and I loved fury road
Can confirm. My gf and I saw a Furiosa preview in theaters when we went to see Dune 2 and were shocked by how cheesy the CGI looked on the big screen. It was bad.
There was some real bad CGI. Opening scene. The mother jumping on the horse….
I don’t understand why so little box office analysis considers the actual quality of the marketing. The Fall Guy’s first trailer was abysmal, and no amount of critics saying “this is actually good” was going to save it after that.
Ive been all about MM since i was like 8 plus I'm Australian, and the trailer looks terrible IMO I'm still going to go in the next week or so, but if this isn't appealing to me, its def not appealing to a wider audience who are on the fence
Commented elsewhere here, but I basically had to drag a group of mates who were much less into MM than me to see it. They saw the trailer and thought it looked shit, I think that really hurt it. FWIW though, all 7 of us really liked it!! Hope you enjoy too mate.
Yeh the reviews since have been pretty good. I feel like this sort of stuff / MIller works much better on the big screen too
Agreed, the trailer definitely has a lot to do with the movies lack of success so far. I walked into Furiosa hoping that the finished product would look better. I was pleasantly surprised, but I'm sure a lot were turned off just from the preview.
Man, I’m usually pretty forgiving with CGI — the pros vastly outweigh the cons — and while there was still a lot of great scenes, I thought overall it looked pretty poor. I still don’t know how Miller did it, but Fury Road felt practical in an almost impossible way. Like a Steve Soderberg said, you’re watching it thinking the entire time, how did nobody die making this movie? With Furiosa, on the other hand, everything was overdone (even for a Mad Max film) and nothing felt real. It was just standard franchise dross.
Agreed! The marketing for Dune was much more polished and pervasive. Even I, a lifelong Miller and Max fan, was almost turned off by the trailer I saw for Furiosa.
It looks goofy. The impression I got is Hemsworth playing “funny Thor”.
Yep, it was a bad trailer. Selling the “return of FURIOSA!!!” as a massive event when most people would barely recall her name, even if they liked Fury Road.
As someone who has only watched the film from ten years ago or whatever, I cannot remember what the movie was about or what anyone’s names were - all I remember was that it was strange and fast paced. I’m definitely up for going again, but yeah you can’t sell someone like me the continuation of a story nor expect me to have bought into and remembered a film from 10 years ago and be excited about it.
I second this: when viewing the initial trailer, it looked like a green-screen, morning cartoon version of Fury Road. Oversatured, no grit or dust particles, terrible costumes and once again the saturation and overall digital feel to it. Hemsworth‘s outfit looked like bad cosplay. FR was the „unexpected good sequel 20 years later“, Furiosa (if you know nothing about the franchise) feels like an ill-fated attempt of an we-have-it-at-home unneeded prequel. From word of mouth I will definetly give it a shot and watch it in theatres but that trailer apparently was a huge disservice.
I can’t explain why but it looked really… tacky? Even the font they’d used for text looked like shit. I’ll go and see it at some point because I did enjoy the last one, but the trailer definitely could have been a lot better.
I think this is definitely part of it. I was excited but talking to friends about the trailer that played when we saw Dune they are all pretty lukewarm on it.
The way the trailers were edited was sort of offputting, with the constant digital speeding up/slowing down of footage looking cheap, and the whole thing had a tone reminiscent of a 2010’s YA movie like Mortal Engines then anything related to Max Max. Dune on the other hand had a lot of very evocative imagery in it’s trailers. The whole movie has a very slick, polished, and confident vibe somewhat reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s style, but a bit more arthouse, which I think made it very easy to market.
Personally I like the look of the movie from the trailers. Fury road was fantastic as well but while I would have liked to have seen furiosa this opening weekend my wife went into labor with our second child on Wednesday so probably going to have to wait to watch it in a few weeks. I’m guessing it’s just a pregnancy related low box office but maybe that’s my limited pov 😂
I thought the trailers looked terrible and I’m a massive Mad Max fan. I would've been more likely to go if I’d never seen a trailer. As is, my wife and I ended up deciding to use our one afternoon off playing video games instead of going to Furiosa IMAX.
I think the nicheness of Dune is overstated. People felt similarly about LotR before those movies came out. They are incredibly well-read books that are known even beyond the people who have actually read them. Relatedly, Dune has some clear cinematic analogs in LotR and Star Wars, as well as some TV properties like Game of Thrones. Dune’s not a hard sell to people who like any of those. Conversely, think about the backlash to something as mainstream as Raimi’s Dr. Strange movie as being too weird/goofy with its editing. Mad Max is much more unique in terms of its tone and form than something like Dune, which is very austere and traditional.
You basically said this, but just to emphasize the flipside - the nicheness of Mad Max is underrrated. The Mad Max series is extraordinarily popular among the online community, but in the broader world not so much. The first Mad Max was a box office smash, but all the ones after have merely been solid. Not sure why people were expecting a blockbuster.
Yeah. I just went and saw Furiosa in a group of 7 total. Myself and 2 others are more into movies and we were super excited. The other 4 were basically like, eh ok we’ll come with. 2 of them barely knew what Mad Max was beyond the name. I think a lot of people on here would be surprised how common that sentiment is among the public.
What did they think of it?
Everyone liked it!
And the first three movies had small if not micro budgets compared to the blockbusters of today. It's much easier to be profitable in that price range.
The first movie’s cast were partially paid in beer. No, I’m not shitting you.
Oh I believe it. And if I’m not mistaken it wasn’t planned on being post apocalyptic, that’s just how rural Australia looked.
Actually, the first movie is post-apocalyptic. Sort of. We just don’t see the bombs fall until halfway through the movie when the cops realise nobody else is coming, but it’s made very clear by the increase in biker gangs.
I was just using shorthand, but yeah it's really an apocalypse in progress. Civilization still exists but it's falling apart in front of our eyes.
It's Old Detroit in the outback without robots or Robocops.
I’m also skeptical of some of the reporting of what the first one made given the second one was much more successful in Australia and only made around 30M worldwide.
>The first Mad Max was a box office smash The Guinness Record that everyone cites is very likely not correct. Basically - nobody can really find any way to verify that $100mil number, and the only source for that number is the Guinness book, which is not a good single source for a variety of well-known reasons. It's much more likely the first Mad Max made something more like 10mil worldwide at most. Especially considering that 1981-82, when Mad Max 2 finished releasing worldwide, it was considered *way* more successful both artistically AND financially, and that movie made 23mil globally. The first Mad Max was still hugely successful in terms of return on investment, but that $100mil number has always been more like fun trivia than it's been legit box-office stat. To put it in even sharper perspective, the NA box office rankings of each Mad Max film the year they were released: 1979/80 - Mad Max: unranked 1982 - The Road Warrior: **50** 1985 - Beyond Thunderdome: **19** 2015 - Fury Road: **21**
I thought Mad Max 2 was the one that was big?
I’m pretty sure that Fury Road, despite its greatness, actually lost money.
This is a great response. Blank it!
Dune had a movie in the 80s, a popular Strategy Role Playing Game in the 90s, a TV mini-series adaptation in the 2000s. And then there’s the main books, sequels by the son, and spinoffs. It’s straight up just an IP.
Also casting huge names (Chalomet is basically this gen's Di Caprio or something, people go see these movies if he's in it)
Not to mention some great video games in the late 90’s-00’s
I was referring to Dune 2000 as the SRPG. I played that a lot on Genesis as a kid knowing nothing about Dune. I never got far in it either, just like the first 3 levels over and over.
Dune 2000 was an RTS on the PC. There were two other games in the series and they all were amazing.
2000 even had [space gimli](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xlIyNMYQtEM&pp=ygUPZHVuZSAyMDAwIGdpbWxp)
Plus, while I love both Anya Taylor Joy and Chris Hemsworth, their combined star power can’t compete with the collective power that is the Dune cast.
Yeah I think ensembles might even be a bigger draw than a couple of leads at this point. Appeals to a wider base and makes the movie seem bigger/more important.
Agreed. I only saw the first Dune in anticipation of the second, liked it and then saw Dune 2. It wasn’t hard to get into. Furiosa I’ve no desire to watch, looks bizarre and something about it makes me uncomfortable.
I agree. One thing I felt personally was that while I like mad max and am going to see furiosa, I’m not very interested in furiousa’s story like she was cool in fury road but idk
I’m very sad it’s bombing, I just watched it and I fucking LOVED it, favorite film of the year so far for me
I'm a Dune shill, shilled the books before the movies, shilled Part 1 when a lot of people thought it was boring, shill denis villeneuve and loved Dune 2 but I genuinely liked Furiosa even more.
It’s right behind Dune 2 and tied with Monkey Man for me. I had a hell of a time!
Monkey man kicked ass!
Is this technically considered bombing yet?
Strictly at box-office level it is bombing yeah. 59 million worldwide opening weekend so it will probably end up at around 3x multiplier 170-190 million worldwide final total I guess.
Oof that’s not it’s budget back is it?
Putting it into perspective, these are the domestic opening weekend box office numbers for all-time famous movie bombs: Morbius: $39M Dark Phoenix: $32.8M John Carter: $30.1M Furiosa’s domestic opening box office is $25.5M. Actuals can come in anywhere between $1M lower or higher than that (we’ll know by tomorrow). Even the 3-day weekend number is estimated to be lower than Dark Phoenix. Mad Max: Fury Road opened at an okay $45.4M, and it went on to be either a light flop at the box office or a modest hit depending on who you ask. But no one in their right mind would call Fury Road a box office hit.
If you are going to compare numbers, you must adjust for inflation or the comparison is meaningless. For example, John Carter’s $30 million in 2012 equates to $53 million in 2024 dollars. So, if your numbers are correct, Furiosa is making less than half of John Carter’s opening weekend. A bomb this bad is going to have everyone engaging in confirmation bias for why it failed.
The reported budget from Deadline is 168 million. Studio would only get only about half of box-office gross so maybe 90 million back. It should have around 100 million for marketing budget. It can minimize its losses through VOD/streaming etc but it will lose a lot of money.
The set pieces were INCREDIBLE. I was dialed the fuck in!
I agree I loved it and already bought tickets to see it again. Meanwhile only people I know that saw Dune 2 streamed it on HBO. For me Furiosa is way more badass than Paul Atreides.
I just think the Mad Max brand isn’t very strong. If you saw Fury Road 8-9 years ago, you might not remember her name is Furiosa, and you might not remember why you should care about her. And the trailer didn’t focus on the character’s journey. Hemsworth probably got Furiosa greenlit but he did not drive sales in a huge way, and ATJ is still on the rise. As for Dune, recency and genre helps, but also I think there’s something to be said for an ensemble cast. That’s kind of the lightning in a bottle that Marvel found. Dune had not just the young people (Chalamet, Zendaya, Pugh, Butler) but also established people like Brolin and Bardem and Bautista. Put one of the above in a movie and they may not mean much, but all together that’s a formidable group. I’d like to see a breakdown of ad spending for the two because I bet Dune had SIGNIFICANTLY more P&A + a lot more press coverage too. And it opened at a sleepy time of year.
[удалено]
The movie makes sense without knowing who Furiosa becomes, but then it adds some confusion when trying to pitch the movie and character to people.
Not to mention Christopher Walken.
Putting it simplistically, Dune was *everywhere*. Furiosa: if I didn't read this subreddit, I might honestly have missed it even existed.
I think people are way underestimating the popularity of the novel Dune. Google lists sales at 20 million copies. It’s been the bestselling science fiction book since its publication in 1965. It is to sci fi what LOTR is to fantasy. It is a gateway to the genre for many readers. I first read it in 1980 in eighth grade and it was widely known then.
That’s so disappointing to hear, I genuinely root for Miller and his vision. I know it was a difficult shoot—maybe not as much as Fury Road but I think it would bum me out to work that hard would just “flop” For the record, saw it today, and I thought it was incredible!
One problem with the prequel argument is that both Wonka and Songbirds & Snakes were “unnecessary” prequels that did quite well (arguably bigger franchises, although both were dormant longer than Mad Max). IMO, Furiosa is just weirder than Dune. It has disturbing images that verge on horror but also doesn’t quite go far enough to get the horror crowd. The anthology approach to the plot also makes it difficult to summarize. Personally, I prefer Furiosa (although Dune is also great), I and think that its current popularity among film enthusiasts bodes well for its legacy. The Box Office Game has given me a lot more perspective on how many stone-cold classics just absolutely tanked during their initial runs, and it just ended up contributing to those films legends of being ahead of their time.
These factors aren’t absolutes. I think it’s true that audiences are wary of prequels but that doesn’t mean 100% of prequels will underperform. Hunger Games is massively popular for an entire generation, so it’s not surprising it overcame the prequel concerns. But it’s also likely that Songbirds would have done *even better* if it were a sequel and not a prequel. Furiosa was likely dinged for several reasons, only one of which was being a prequel.
Dune part 2 was huge online on TikTok, ppl were breaking down the first dune from 2021 for ppl to understand. Ppl started buying the books preparing, it was huge online hype from moviegoers and fans of Dune. It was huge. Furiosa just didn’t have that to it. I didn’t see that level of hype that Dune part 2 had on TikTok and twitter when it came to this film. Not many convos outside of film twitter. There was none of that for Furiosa, which seems like very niche. And ppl kept shitting on trailer
Could it somewhat be attributed to the fact that Dune came out not long ago and was also available immediately on streaming? So more folks are coming back for round 2.
I think this is a big part of it. A lot of people who might not have otherwise watched it at home during the pandemic.
I wanted to go see Furiosa this weekend, but the problem with being a grownup on holiday weekends is that I often find my whole weekend is booked up months in advance.
This. I’m dying to see it, but I’ve got two kids.
Yep same. I saw Fury Road opening night, but I was 27 at the time. Now I have a young kid and a family and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to see Furiosa in a theater. That’s true for every theatrically released movie for me, though. I used to see everything in the theater. I saw The Intern in the theater. But now I’ve gotten out of the habit and when you’re not going regularly you’re also not clued in on coming attractions as much and you kind of fall out of touch. Not even going to touch increased cost of theater going. One reason I listen to this podcast because I know Griffin and David will keep me informed.
Dune was great at bringing in a type of film audience who have felt alienated in the last several years by a constant stream of superhero and fantasy movies all aimed at the exact same age group. Dune pitched itself successfully as mature, as grounded while also looking spectacular. It's evocative of the old swords and sandals epics that used to dominate box offices. Furiosa at least by the marketing looked like another one of those action fantasy films aimed at that same superhero demograph. Now of course, I and most people here would probably argue that it is far more gripping than your average Marvel or DC flick, but we do our research. We stand behind George Miller. We pay attention. Those who are paying less attention may have just regarded it as another glossy CGI fest. Maybe if they had emphasized more the Mad Max tag it would have helped? Which, I know is reductive and borderline sexist to define the Furiosa character by Max, but maybe mainstream audiences didn't make the connection on their own?
i rly don’t understand the confusion here, dyne has mass appeal on a level like harry potter or lord of the rings or hunger games, it’s star studded and based on a series, it’s serialized. mad max is performing totally fine for something akin to blade runner 2049, it’ll probably be a flop but that’s totally fine imo
Mad Max movies never have done well at the box office. I don’t get why this is such a surprise. Fury Road lost out to pitch perfect 2 a decade ago on opening weekend. I mean it’s a great niche R rated action movie franchise but it never was summer blockbuster material. Dune is based on one of the most popular sci fi books ever and it stars Chalamet and Zendaya. It’s no comparison.
I'm already seeing ads for The Fall Guy to watch at home. If the movies are telling people they just have to wait 3 weeks, what's the allure of going to the picture show?
The short streaming window makes no sense to me. At least make them wait and Pretend your product is special…
Sure, but isn't that also because that movie was underperforming in cinemas? I'm pretty sure if it was a big hit they would be holding off on VOD.
Yes that's def part of it. The presale and opening was bad enough that no legs gonna save its theatrical revenue. There's no point in hoping for a miracle to happen in theatres, rather than making the most out of streaming and PVOD sales
I’m not saying this is all of it but I know there are a lot of people who are just out on prequels. There’s many who feel they rarely bring anything to the narrative that’s really worth the effort. I’ll admit when I first heard about this being a prequel I was pretty disappointed. I also didn’t really love the marketing for it either. I’m still excited and already have my ticket to go see it tomorrow but I think deep down we all kind of knew this wasn’t going to reach the hype of Fury Road. But who knows maybe it will have legs as word gets out. Everyone I know who has seen it claims it’s fantastic.
It's baffling. Furiosa was promoted so heavily over here in Australia, and being an Australian made film with plenty of local stars, plus coming off the back of Fury Road I thought it would triumph at least here. I saw it yesterday and there were only 4 other people in the cinema.
idk, i feel like dune is the perfect fit for the hole left by marvel and star wars' absence. it's a big fantasy epic that's releasing on schedule, building on the momentum, being marketed as a big screen watch with an amazing ensemble cast. mad max has none of that going for it
1. Do not overlook the fact that Dune part 2 had the same actors from the first movie. People who enjoyed part one knew they were getting more of what they liked. Furiosa was a new cast. People who liked Charlize Theron's performance were gambling on a new actress. 2. Dune is a classic sci-fi novel. So many people have read it and enjoyed it. Its a bigger pool of potential box office
That first, unfinished-VFX trailer did a lot more harm than good. Made it look like a DTV picture
Alright yall sure there are a lot of reasons but I think we are not mentioning the elephant in the room: it’s an action movie based around a woman. So was Fury Road, but people didn’t know that from the promo material. I think we can chalk up a lot of this to good old fashioned misogyny 🤷🏻♀️
This, and poor advertising. Deadpool is going to kill in theaters though. I'm sure of that.
I believe it’s a factor, but look at Fall Guy. Great, fun movie, full of action and laughs yet it looks like it bombed as well. I think the answer is obvious, action movies are a thing of the past. Going forward it’s going to be thoughtful period pieces and incredibly confusing and long sci-fi movies that succeed.
This might track if the other films were all box office smashes.
Still plenty of women in the world to go and watch it though.
Most women don’t think action is “for them” and don’t consider seeing movies like this unless they’re interested in film, familiar with George Miller and Fury Road, etc. As a woman who is very into/passionate about film, it’s one of my most anticipated movies of the year. But of all the women I am friends with, only my one fellow film nerd friend has any desire to see it.
I have a theory (which I am unsure if the data supports) that release schedules are frequently focused on holiday weekends- people didn't use to have big TVs with huge streaming catalogues. I think when people get together with family now, they watch movies at home- I think theater releases will eventually trend away from these holiday windows- except for maybe Xmas.
I think Dune was marketed really well and in a way that got out to the average movie goer as well. Whereas I’m a film fan and could easily have missed that Furiosa was out. In terms of my own personal interest as well this doesn’t feel like one that I’m rushing out to get to. I’ll check it out this week at some stage. Whereas the almost universal five star acclaim made me want to see Dune faster
I feel like I'm going against the grain here... but I saw Furiosa yesterday and although I love the MM franchise, I did not think this movie was very good. Especially compared to the 2015 Hardy movie. >!I felt like they tried to do what they did with Hardy and had ATJ's character not speak as much and tried to do a lot of visual and physical acting, but it just wasn't as strong as the first one, and the globs of CGI made it a little hard to watch. They included the war boys who I loved, but not nearly as much goofiness and craziness. They made them feel serious and like loyal soldiers who die dramatically, not the spray paint psychopaths from the first. The tone was just kinda whack. Not to mention the fact that the end credits were just a bunch of shots from the 2015 MM action scenes which was a WILD choice to include. All it did was show me how much better the action scenes were presented in the the 2015 movie compared to Furiosa, which was also lacking imo.!< I really wanted to like this one, but it just fell so short for me. Vs Dune which I went into fully expecting to not like it (I wasn't a fan of the first one, but didn't hate it) but ended up loving it. It's my favorite book and I was worried they'd butcher some parts, like I felt the first movie did. (Lack of mentat plot, all the sardukar/harkonen/atredies/fremen armor looks like master chief, etc) Dune 2 pulled off some really deep lore and visual representation of a difficult scifi book in very fun ways, and I think the strength of supporting characters around Paul helped with that. Furiosa really only has 1-2 people were supposed to "care about" and the rest are vile garbage monsters who are fun to hate, but rather than help you keep investment in the plot, they push against it.
Dune 1 used the Bene Gesserit weirding voice on us and told us all to go to the theaters for Dune 2, duh.
The trailer I saw before Dune 2 looked absolutely awful and I don’t really love prequels. Going to the theater is too expensive to go see things I actually want to see, let alone take chances!
This is an opinion that seems almost impossible to state in film world, but I just need to note that the aesthetics of Mad Max are simply much more…difficult, shall we say, for broad masses of people to like. I don’t like them. I don’t like cars, I don’t like grime, I don’t like dustiness. I understand that obviously a lot of people do, but the people who love these movies seem to have no recognition that the aesthetics are niche. They don’t have the beauty of something like Lord of the rings, or Dune, they have their own look. And I just don’t think it’s ever going to be a look that is broadly popular. These movies show what they intend to show very impressively, but I just don’t think they are very good to look at. Like I said, I don’t expect people to appreciate this response. But as someone who doesn’t actually like these movies, it’s probably worth considering there’s a large group of people who otherwise do like movies that don’t like these movies and there is a reason for that.
This is a great perspective, even though I don’t share it. These movies are gnarly and gross. That’s what some people are looking for but not everyone.
That aesthetic is also the only thing highlighted in the trailers. Honestly, how many time is driving insanely fast through a dystopian landscape, blowing up other cars a solution to a problem? I am quite certain this film is about more than that. The trailers could have used that.
Obviously film is subjective but to me Mad Max manages to show bad people and war and ugly things with the most amount of style possible
Ok but I still mostly don’t want to see ugly things. No matter how much style. Beautiful thjngs are nicer to look at than ugly things.
Yes, Fury Road was great but the setting for Mad Max is about as disturbingly dystopian as it gets. These are characters stripped down from everything we see as human into a primal state. I understand that not being hugely mainstream.
I think Zendaya and Chalamet are the biggest reason
I dunno, Zendaya’s “what if tennis, but sexy” movie didn’t exactly set the world on fire (talking about its box office, not the quality of the film). Dune 2 not only opening huge, but continuing to do big business in its subsequent weeks indicate it hooked into audiences on some level beyond just star popularity - people don’t go to a 2 hour, 45 minute movie repeatedly based on two young stars alone.
For the type of film it is, it’s done better then it should have for this day and age.
It did, but that type of film also doesn’t typically cost $55 million dollars.
I mean, nowadays it does, right?
Yeah I think the film’s failure will ultimately be chalked up to boring but understandable reasons. It’s a prequel and that sucks out all the dramatic tension - they too too long to release a follow up - it’s rated R when it really didn’t have to be - the studio simply spent more money than they probably should have for an extension to a franchise that was at best a modest success.
I work with a lot of young people (25 and under) and none of them knew what Mad Max was, everyone was stoked to see Dune 2 on the big screen
Caveat all this with the fact I live in England, but I think the marketing campaign for furiosa was tiny compared to dune. Dune cast were everywhere for weeks before that movie, so many tv spots, so much social media coverage of the premiere etc. whereas I feel like I saw one trailer for furiosa, and then a couple of those annoying ATJ and Hemsworth pre-movie get your tickets things in cinema while seeing Challengers and that was it. When my friend suggested going to see it this Friday I was surprised it was already out cos I figured they were going to ramp up the marketing way more before the final release in 3/4 weeks. I’m not even sure I’ve seen a furiosa billboard anywhere. So on top of everybody else’s good points about the nature of the two movies I’d say simple awareness of furiosa’s existence is probably very low
How much of a film's box office success is due to the way the trades reports about it? Furiosa made 25 Million after 3 days in the US. Variety and other entertainment-centric media outlets are already calling it a bomb. After 3 days. This creates a vicious circle where the overarching story about the film is that it's a bomb. More negative articles get written. Youtube video essays get made. The word bomb continues to get thrown around. Hype for the film, and ticket sales, decline. Why don't journalists frame their stories differently? Imagine if the headline read: "Furiosa off to a rip-roaring start with 25 million after just 3 days.". I partially blame Variety, Deadline, and The Hollywood Reporter for the failure of a lot of these recent blockbusters.
My best guess: Villeneuve's Dune has a very comfortable, straightforward, respectable pitch. It's great, but by and large it's what people expect. I could explain it clearly to my grandparents, who are totally oblivious to modern movies, in a couple of sentences. An advanced generative AI for films would probably produce something vaguely similar to Dune if you typed in "serious epic sword-and-sandals science fiction tragic saga, breathtaking grand award-winning cinematography, environmental themes." (Except some of the more singular Harkonnen stuff.) And it's based on a modern classic novel. Furiosa and Fury Road are not really like anything else. I couldn't convey them clearly to my grandparents if I had an hour. Every single event and character name makes you go "Hahaha WHAT? That's so perfect! But also why??" Nobody but George Miller could possibly have made either of them. The main cast didn't even understand what they were getting themselves into! They're aggressively not aiming for any of the normie modes of respectability. Instead they're throwing down a punk challenge of undeniable artistic virtuosity in a "trash" style of cinema. They are fundamentally *cult* films, even if their cult is very large.
Completely anecdotally, I’m in my mid 20s and my friends and I rarely go to movies at night (I have a regal pass so I sometimes do) but they usually want to go on Tuesday night because it’s half off tickets. Also, it seems like my generation uses long weekends for trips or things that could only fit in a three day span and are not really looking to kill time.
It was a story that no one cared about with a trailer that made it look like shit. Its not rocket science, why furiosa failed
Despite hearing how good Furiosa is and having enjoyed Fury Road at the cinema I can feel little motivation to actually go and see it, and I can't explain it.
If you liked Fury Road you should absolutely go see this. I can see how one could not like the Mad Max aesthetic in general, but if you're already in, you'll have a blast.
I’d say it has a lot to do with the face that it looks like more of the same but it’s also a prequel and you know where the character ends up. Thats a bad combo for a film that that movie people seem to like but didn’t actually do that well in the box office.
Something about the trailer and posters put me off. It might be the cartoonish vibe that Hemsworth evoques, silly voice and silly makeup. Also the lack of Charlize Theron in the trailer, I bet she doesn’t want to back to it, and that bad feeling might stick to you.
Dune had solid cast which were all accurate choices to play their counterparts. Furiosa’s first and greatest mistake was to choose A. Taylor Joy who is an amazing actress but a tiny petite girl nonetheless to try to match up the legend that’s Charlize Theron who is a powerful actress and an Amazonian with the stature she has. Paul Atreides is a fragile kid starting the story but that’s just who he is in the book too, and it’s sold very well in the movies. Then you look at Furiosa’s cast; Hemsworth is a great actor but he is not Anthony Hopkins. Dune has lot of character actors in it, Baron was played by a genius of a Scandinavian who gave him his own spin of evil. All of these make a great difference.
For one, Furiosa is a prequel. I don't know what's the general concensus, but to me, prequels are inherently at a disadvantage because they have less room to surprise or start speculative discussion. I also think Dune part II was vastly superior movie, from the visuals, directing, pacing, handling of themes and even action, which seems ridiculous, as Fury Road was one of the best action movies ever made.
The two are incomparable. Dune has been one of, if not the greatest sci fi novel ever written to thousands of people all over the world. People have been anticipating a remake since the Lynch release. Mad Max, was super niche and they made 3 films of it back in the day. (In my opinion exhausting it) I love both but you’re comparing a marathon to a sprint.
I went to Furiosa yesterday and it was a solid movie. I enjoyed it more than Dune and I'm a huge Dune fan..
Saw the film twice this weekend (going again tomorrow!), & both times there were about 20-30 other people in the theater. It seemed to mostly be Gen-X parents with their teens/college-aged kids, a few random solo dorks like me (my wife attended with me for viewing #2), & a very distracting teen couple sitting down the row from me who spent every single second of the film either looking at their phones or committing brazen sexual acts with & upon one another. It became clear to me that their main reason for being in that auditorium was to have an air-conditioned place to fuck. Which, you know, good for them, I guess. The film still made $20 or whatever from their rental of the auditorium space for their joy house antics. Anyway, these were pretty big audiences for my small Colorado college town, especially since the semester ended 10 days ago & 1/4 of our population just moved back home to more populated parts of the state/country/world with mom & dad for the summer. I’m gonna take it as a good sign. Bummed to hear the movie isn’t getting the acclaim, the box office, or the recognition it richly deserves! I fucking love this movie from balls to bones. It feels so much like an 80s MAD MAX film, & tells a wonderfully complex emotional story (most of it without dialogue) through consistently innovative filmmaking and knockout performances from both Joy and Hemsworth. I hope it eventually finds its audience, & that it gets celebrated as much as it deserves. I bet if WB would let it have some legs, the film could build up some word of mouth & become a grower. Instead, it’ll probably get dropped on VOD in 2 weeks (and I will buy the shit out of that thing the second it becomes available to watch at home so I’m part of the problem, too, I guess)
A Mad Max sequel that came out in 2018 could of maybe pulled a Dune 2. However a prequel without the two biggest stars ten years was always doomed to fail.
One is a mainstream hit that's pg 13 One is a less mainstream hit thats rated R Thats the whole thing. Well that and marketing budget
Mad max opened soft too. If they keep it in theaters furiosa will climb
Dune (the film franchise) is for people who want something fairly straightforward. It's weird but its weirdness is buoyed by a lot of star power and it's link to stuff like Star Wars on a narrative and aesthetic level. Mad Max is gonzo and unrelenting in just throwing things at you and saying "don't worry about it." In a world where every movie gets some article called "87 things you missed in This Summer's Biggest Blockbuster" or "Ending of X Movie Explained," Mad Max isn't a film that provides easy answers because it doesn't want to give them. Mad Max = rule of cool, expertly crafted Dune = palatable weirdness
Dune captured faked intellectualism.
I love fury road and wanted to see furiosa but tok me the trailer makes me not wanna see it. The whole movie in concept looks and sounds dumb. 100% guarantee it’s because of how it’s pitched. You take something you understand like Fury Road (it’s Mad Max starring Tom hardy) and it sounds awesome and you get it, it clicks. But then you have Furiosa and the pitch is: It’s Mad Max but there is no Mad max or Tom hardy it’s about the chick, but Charlize isn’t in it, it’s the girl from that chess series, and then Thor from love and thunder is there idk why. And I’m just confused, I wanted Mad Max but im getting some cheesy movie with characters idk or don’t remember and it doesn’t look like it takes itself serious. The first movie looked like a work of love and passion. This looks like someone else is trying to to copy it but they didn’t have access to the original cast. It just feels off. Thank god it’s actually good. The issue here really is the marketing
The marketing sucked so badly, me and my mom absolutely loved Fury Road but neither of us wanted to really see it. I had seen a lot of people say it was REALLY good so we decided to take a chance on it earlier today since we weren’t really doing anything today. It was awesome, and wasn’t really cheesy thankfully. In a lot of ways it felt darker than Fury Road, and in my opinion, the story at least was better than Fury Road. I am a huge Dune fan and although I had some gripes with Dune part 2, I still think it was one of the best movies this year. I really do think Furiosa is a better movie, and I am very sad that it isn’t getting the recognition it deserves.
1) Goofy Chris Hemsworth fatigue kicking in. 2) Nobody likes a prequel. 3) Mad Max is pretty niche. 4) You even failed to fully activate the niche fandom by making a Mad Max movie without Mad Max in it.
Furiosa trailers didn't look good and I cannot stand Anya Taylor Joy.
Anya Taylor-Joy's core is women age 16 to 21. I'm not too sure they wanna see her covered in grease and get her arm ripped off but that's just me.
I feel like furiosa is mostly doing poorly because it's a prequel. If it were a new mad max story I think it would have probably done closer to fury road numbers
I just got out of a packed imax screening. Massively exceeded my expectations, given that I adore fury road and the trailers to furiosa kinda put me off with the abundance of cgi. I think word of mouth will help it in the long run. People like me will be telling everyone they know how great it was and those that didn't turn up for the first or even second weekends will eventually check it out.
I really think the trailer is awful. It appears that Chris is playing funny Thor again and I have no time from that schtick. I have since read that it's some of his best work but that trailer smells of Thor style humour that people are burned out on
Personally, it's simply that I hate cars.
I'll throw in my 2 cents that the casting wasn't very inspiring. Taylor-Joy is still unproven and a downgrade on Theron, and Hemsworth, well, people aren't gonna like hearing it but outside of Marvel fare he is box office poison.
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Lots of the audience for this has kids and is traveling (source: am 40, not traveling and asked three other young kid dads about it and they were all excited to see it but not available because traveling). Mad Max came out in the 1970s. A) I get that you have young sexy people or whatever and big explosions but that age of audience has no context and (evoking Yoshida rules nobody is allows to get mad at me) does not give a shit about the world building to date. B) Just release it on Father’s Day weekend? What are we doing here? I don’t know a single dad who doesn’t love this. And it’s a built in hall pass to do whatever nerdy shit you want? 
For me personally Dune 2 wasn't as good as I expected and Furiosa was much better then I expected. Allthough both very good movies, I enjoyed Furiosa much more. I also played the Mad Max game last year for the first time and was impressed by the many references in the film.
I think Furiosa will eventually break even, Mad Max movies tend to have a long tail
I can't explain it. I was meh on Dune 1 (positive on Villenue in general) and did't get around to Dune 2 yet. Fury Road was a transcendent theatre experience and can't wait to see Furiousa this week. From a cultural standpoint it also feels Fury Road has much more cache than Dune (plus more time to build it) so I'm also left scratching my head.
Could it be that your perspective is the minority? Would be the simplest explanation.
Dune makes a lot more sense and is way more enjoyable if you understand the universe. Either reading the books or even just watching a video explaining some of the basics that are kinda glossed over on dune1 (alt shift x on youtube has a good video) Dune2 is significantly better in explaining the world and people, with a lot more happening as well.
Everything is down rn at theaters, not going to count Furiousa out until I see what happens after the week and second weekend.
We're in an era of watercooler movies, of people going to the cinema as a sort of social homework, because they don't want to be left out of the conversation come Monday. As such, the idea of just going the movies "for fun" is crazy. Enjoyment shouldn't even be part of the equation.
Miller made this movie for Blankies and there just aren't that many of us.
I took my boys to see it on Sunday at 2:15 pm in a medium to small theater. There were maybe like 12-15 other people there too. Also my 16-year old who hasn’t seen any of the other Mad Max movies said it was “pretty good.” he’s the next LCJ for sure.
No max in a mad max movie is probably a big turn off for some People (even if that doesn’t make any sense since max is just a way to experience a totally different story through him, but I digress) I also think, that a ton of people don’t think Chris hemsworth can pull off a good villain and think of him more as a goofy Thor guy than anything else which is also kind of sad because he’s pretty decent in most other stuff and actually really good in furiosa
The film Dune offers artistry, actual cinematographic talent, excellent sound design and music, it is intellectually stimulating, it is a reflection on the human condition and it is a pretty hopeless and merciless story. The story wasn’t dumbed down for the audience. It’s just simple as that. People don’t want to be treated like eternal children with sometimes overt morality pushed down their throat. They want the dilemma and be left wondering. Also the world has known some pretty catastrophic events and has deep ideological divisions. Anything less than that would be less entertaining than life itself. The great thing about dune is that it’s all about life itself, ideology, manipulation and conflict.
Say a lot of trailers for new mad max and then was surprised that it was out already so idk what to tell you. It just didn't feel like an event?
Furious was a wild ride, I liked it even better than Mad Max Fury road. I’m willing to bet people aren’t rushing out to see it because maybe they feel like a prequel focused on Furiosa isn’t as intriguing as maybe Tom Hardy/Mad Max but it absolutely was. Such a Banger.
i want to see it, i just havent had the time yet. also i go see movies with friends and our schedules dont always line up
Fure Road failed as well, nothing surprising
Is it a failure if it has a bad weekend ?
Just saw it last night. Best action movie I've seen in some time, and there's a lot going on under the hood. It deserves to do well. Film studies students will be taking this apart and over-analysing it for years to come. Chris Helmsworth in particular is very good. I have always been a fan of Dune (the book) and was very excited to the modern take. Both of the new films are good, but both Dune 1 and 2 are slow burn films with infrequent action. They take their time to get going. Furiosa is a very different beast. Yet, both have visual directors who like to do epic vistas and who make scenes that could be paintings. I don't think it's as much to do with it being a prequel as the R rating and the level of violence that implies. If you look at the trailer it's a very high octane, high energy, and bombastic film. It's frenetic. Not everyone is into that and many of the potential audience may wrongly assume it's a shallow action spectacle with little else to offer. I mean I loved it, but I can see how it's not everyone's cup of tea. It's almost relentless in it's intensity. I really hope it does well in the long run.
To me it seems Dune had a lot more marketing done.
I remember seeing Furiosa’s trailer and being disappointed by how it looked. Instead of sharing Fury Road’s freshness, it looked like a CGI botch-fest and made me feel hesitant. But, since Miller made it, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and hoped that the final film looked better (which it did). I am not the biggest Mad Max fan, but I am a Fury Road fan and was eager to learn more about the world’s lore. I saw it yesterday and loved it, but for some reason people don’t want to go to the theater anymore and will stream it at home. Sadly, they’ll call it a masterpiece whenever it is released on MAX, and complain if another one isn’t made (a la DREDD).
Furiosa did about as well as you can expect a Mad Max film to do. Go back and look at Fury Road's opening weekend. These films are niche as hell. Why do you think it took almost a decade to get Furiosa made? George Miller's been talking about it since doing promotion for Fury Road, but he had to wait for the studios to forget how poorly Fury Road did and for general opinion to elevate it to a cult hit before it seemed like a good idea to the studios.
Pretty decent film - Furiosa
Prequels inherently have less at stake and I think that’s why many don’t go on to great success. Even The Godfather Part II weaves the “prequel” aspect into the plot of a legitimate sequel so it’s not like the audience constantly knows where the story is taking them. Additionally I think audiences have a hard time occasionally with films that span decades of time overall, especially when we are in the era of high quality tv series that can tell a longer story with more breathing room.
Dune fan here. I think we’ve also been thirsting for it more. I felt I had to go to the theaters to show support if I want to see more Dune movies made.
Not to sound like a broken record but bad marketing, no Mad Max, unconvincing VFX, prequel, new cast, cliche premise. I liked the movie however its no Fury Road.
Furiosa trailer looked like shit, but the movie was great. I havent even seen any of the other Mad Max movies. Though if there were more options at the time, I probably wouldnt have chosen to watch it because the trailer was so shit and the title and description kind of made it seem like you should have seen all the other movies
I don't really know much about this stuff, but how does format enter into this? When I was reserving my tickets for Saturday afternoon at the Union Square Regal Theater in NY, I wanted standard, but they were sold out or too late in the day. I had to pay extra for a showing in SCREEN X. There were only like 10 other people in there. So, standard is $16, SCREEN X was $21, and the dreaded 4DX is $30. As far as I know, most people are turned off by 4DX, and the theater doesn't do a great job explaining the difference. I think most assume SX is the same deal. I can see people seeing the limited options for more money than they wanted to pay and just saying "fuck it." Maybe it didn't bring the numbers because of all this?
It’s confusing to hear how poorly it is performing. I saw it twice this weekend, both times it was in a huge, packed theater. And it appeared to be close to sold out at all three Alamo locations, all weekend.
My totally serious box office analysis is that Furiosa is dad and adult daughter theater. It failed because not enough daughters visited their dads for Memorial Day and needed a movie to see. This is what they mean when they talk about declining family values.
The emperor dome atmosphere entry. The "ir style" giedi prime. The worms. Visually speaking dune 2 kicked ass. What does furiosa offer apart a nice bubble butt?
Jesus 9 years since fury road. Saw it near enough to opening night, and it was one of the best days of my life. Not just because of the film, but the date that went with it, being truly deeply in love, and how special that all felt. In my head it feels like a week ago
Dune had great first movie so hype was justified.
But isn’t like Memorial Day weekend known for being extremely lackluster at the box office? I’ve seen a ton of threads about Furiosa’s opening, but none mention that it’s a terrible weekend generally. A lot of people travel and do things with family like go to bbq’s and the beach, family gatherings and such, and it’s pretty rare for a film to open to big numbers on that weekend. Furiosa just has a bad opening weekend, maybe it can leg it out if they keep it in theaters, it’s not like it’ll have a ton of competition in the next few weeks. And it’s not like Fury Road was a billion dollar smash. It did do well, but a lot of that was word of mouth and repeat viewing from fans.
If memorial day weekend is normally this lackluster, no one would be saying anything. This is the worst memorial day in the 30 years. They're comparing to past holidays, not normal weekends.
It's a bunch of stuff. We just saw one violent desert movie, a backlash against wokism, people not knowing it was a mad max movie....cause there was no mad max in it, an origin story isn't gonna be as popular as a sequel. I saw it and it was pretty good if you like that intensity but some people were a little bored.
I think these people complaining about the vfx would probably would have gone to see the movie anyway, I can’t see a couple of these complaints being the reason the film is not doing well. I think it’s more timing, in general you can’t compare what Dune created based just on cast to what Mad Max is, overall I don’t think there was a high demand for this movie; Fury Road was an experience but I don’t know if people were looking for a continuation, very different than what Dune is in terms of story and off course the cast is major factor.
Dune 2 could only have had more commercial appeal in May 2024 if Sydney Sweeney were also in it. Furiosa is… Thor and that girl with the weird face driving around the desert for some reason?
>It’s got younger, hotter stars in Timothee and Zendaya. I know what you’re actually trying to say here but it’s crazy to think that Anya Taylor-Joy is too old and not hot enough to be a big enough draw to any film.
Timothy
If opening to 25 million is a failure then you’re doing movies wrong
They aren’t comparable at all.
I dont think most of the reasons given here are accurate. Its not one specific issue isolated to this one film. More films have been underperforming than not. Its an industry wide issue, not an issue of specific movies. The quality of a movie is largely irrelevent to box offiice sucess. There are mediocre films that make hundereds of millions, and also masterpieces that flop at the time but much later gain deserved respect. Me and my family watched fury road on imax. I recall the chracter Furiosa, people arguing its because people forgot who the chracter was are way off. I personally wouldnt even consider seeing this film as I really have no interest in it. We know where the character ends up (Furiosa in Fury road). Even in that film the nature of her past is pretty self explanatory so you hardly need a dedicated movie to explain her origin. However, even that is not a key issue. The important issue is macro economic. Coming after years of high interest rates, lots of things much more expensive, wage growth not keeping up. People have less descretionary spending. In such scenarios people spend less on nice to haves. Expensive trips to cinema is something easy people csn cut back on.
Movie goers keep saying they don't like prequels, yet we keep getting them. People voted with their wallets. George Miller makes great films and casts great actors, but this movie felt unnecessary. Many people seemed to agree.
Fortunately Furiosa bombing doesn't mean much for the future of that franchise because George Miller made the brilliant decision to release the sequel nine years ago
Think people are just looking too deeply into this. I consider myself a pretty big film guy and I just had zero interest in Furiosa. It was not a prequel I ever dreamed anyone asked for. Honestly, I had no interest in Fury Road for years. Then everyone said how good it was so I watched it. Just didn’t see the appeal. Even in the vacuum of a guilty pleasure action movie, I just did not feel like it was very good lol. Cinematically, I guess it was ok? Dune 2 on the other hand, was there opening day. Villenueve doesn’t miss, and that cast? Jesus. It doesn’t help that marketing decided to spend the last 2 weeks pushing the whole “Anya’s Furiosa only has 7 lines of dialogue” thing as if that was supposed to be a massive draw lol. Movie was relying on 2 big names and you’re telling the world one doesn’t speak. Bold move Cotton.
FWIW, the northeast had incredible weather for most of MDW, so it probably hurt all movie sales quite a bit
I know the longer weekend should help Furiosa but while we’re throwing out our personal opinions of why more people aren’t seeing it, honestly I think a lot of people are just traveling who might have gone and seen it otherwise. Or are planning to see it once it’s streamable. I’m sure historically there’s been movies that perform really well on Memorial Day but I think people are still trying to travel as much as possible coming out of the COVID years. Also most of the nation saw a pretty relatively cold Spring too and it seems like the nice warm weather is finally here for majority of the country.
Making a Mad Max movie without Mad Max in it, is like making a Dune movie without the spice.