Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is available on demand now, but has a sequel to the film been cancelled after its poor box office performance? Read on for all the details.
The spin-off prequel to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road hit cinemas in May, the fifth instalment in George Miller’s Mad Max universe.
It saw Anya Taylor-Joy step into the role of the younger Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road. In the film, Furiosa is kidnapped by the forces of Chris Hemsworth’s Dementus and it charts her rise to the rank of Imperator.
Named by NME as one of the best films of 2024 so far, it is now available to purchase for home viewing here.
Tom Hardy, who played Max Rockatansky in Fury Road, does not appear in Furiosa, and said in June that he had not yet seen the film. “But I know it’s bound to be special because it’s come from George,” he said.
In a five-star review, NME described the film as “brilliant and unmissable,” and “another extraordinary blockbuster juggernaut that in some sequences somehow excels even its predecessor, arresting viewers with its booming, utterly immersive world of grease, dust, motorbikes and carnage.”
Has Furiosa 2 been cancelled after poor box office returns?
Despite receiving rave reviews from critics, the film struggled in its opening weekend at the box office.
Against a budget of $168million (£143million), the film underperformed in its box office debut, only recouping $25.6million ($20million) between Friday and Sunday in the US, with a further $33.3million (£26million) from international audiences.
With its cinematic run now complete, the film sits on a worldwide box office intake of $173million (£134million), only just above the film’s budget, indicating a major commercial disappointment.
There has been no official word on whether there will be another film in the series, although Furiosa’s performance has made it less likely that worldwide distributors Warner Bros. Pictures would feel comfortable investing in it.
For his part, Miller has expressed interest in returning to the characters. Speaking at Cannes, he said: “There’s certainly more stories there. I’ll definitely see how this goes”.
He has also hinted at the possibility of a film titled Mad Max: The Wasteland, set one year prior to the events of Fury Road.
“In doing what we did in the preparation of Mad Max: Fury Road, we also wrote what happened to Max in the year before we encounter him [in that film],” Miller said. “And as we get towards the end of this movie [Furiosa], the chronology… Basically, we had to see that Mad Max was lurking around somewhere because we do know what happened.
“The writers know what happened to Mad Max in that year before, and we have a whole story of that, which I would like to do sometime if I get the chance.”
Due to Furiosa’s disappointing performance, if there is to be a Furiosa 2 or Mad Max: The Wasteland, it may be that it will have to be a scaled-back production, if it happens at all.