Furiosa Succeeds In Global IMAX Theaters Despite Box Office Struggles
Summary
Furiosa: A Mad Max Sagahas broken an unwanted record for George Miller’s post-apocalyptic action franchise. The movie is the fifth installment in theMad Maxfranchise, which kicked off in 1979 and had its most recent installment in 2015 with the Oscar-winningMad Max: Fury Road, to which the new movie is a direct prequel. Although it took No. 1 in its opening weekend, theFuriosabox officehas had a disappointing start with the worst Memorial Day debut in decades, earning $26.3 million against its whopping $168 million budget.
PerDeadline, theFuriosabox office has earned $10.75 million in its second weekend at the domestic box office, bringing its cumulative domestic gross to $49.6 million. This is a 59% drop from its 3-day opening of $26.3 million over the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Although it’s overall a decent drop for a major blockbuster, it is somewhat harsher considering that there are no other major new wide releases in theaters this weekend in addition to earning theworst-ever week 2 drop for theMad Maxfranchise.
Ultimately, it is somewhat difficult to compare theFuriosareleaseto the originalMad Maxtrilogy. In addition to international box office numbers being more opaque at the time, the distribution scheme for the original movies complicated matters considerably. This includes the fact that the original 1979 movie, despite being a major global hit,never got a domestic theatrical release, to the point that its 1981 sequelMad Max 2was retitledThe Road Warriorwhen it was released in North America in 1982 because the original movie was not a well-known title in the region.
The original movies were also largely treated as international imports, even as the franchise became more iconic in North America, and had releases dissimilar to the blockbuster rollouts ofMad Max: Fury RoadandFuriosa. The latter two movies behaving more like blockbusters explains whyFury Roadpreviously had the worst week 2 dropout of movies from the franchise that were released in domestic theaters, which was partially a natural reaction to its significantly higher debut. Below, see how the new movie’s week 2 drop compares to the domestic releases of each previous installment in the franchise:
$99.7 million
$2.5 million
5.4%
$23.7 million
$7.3 million
26.3%
$36.2 million
$45.4 million
45.8%
$379.4 million
$26.3 million
59.2%
TBD
While its week 2 drop is entirely relative, breaking this record for the franchise is just the cherry on top of a rough run for theFuriosa: A Mad Max Sagabox office. The new movie comes with a reported production budget of $168 million, which means that itlikely needs to make $336 million just to break even, let alone earn a profit. With its global box office total struggling to scrape just $100 million, this does not seem like it will be a distinct possibility for the prequel.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Cast
A prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa is an action-adventure film that tells the origin story of the headstrong and fearless Furiosa. Set shortly after the beginning of the “end of the world,” Furiosa is kidnapped and brought before a powerful warlord, now forced to work for him. To find her way back home, Furiosa will adapt to the new harsh and arid world as she grows into the Furiosa she becomes known to be.
