10 Awesome 2022 Movies That Didn't Deserve To Flop

3. Three Thousand Years Of Longing

Thanks to 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road, writer/director George Miller received a huge boost in popularity. While he was once one of the hottest filmmakers in the industry, the 2000s saw Miller largely drop out of the mainstream consciousness, bar a couple of Happy Feet pictures.

Due to the success of Fury Road, the Australian director was back in the spotlight in a major way. Sure, it may have been seven years since that last Mad Max outing, but anticipation was extremely high for Miller's next movie, the Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba-fronted Three Thousand Years of Longing.

Adapted from A.S. Byatt's The Djinn in the Nightingale short story, this 2022 release has Elba as a djinn unleashed by Swinton's professor. In terms of its narrative, the film is good, but it's the performances and visuals that really make Three Thousand Years of Longing stand out as something special - as reflected by strong reviews from critics.

With some blaming the film's marketing campaign (or lack thereof) for its box office performance, Three Thousand Years of Longing didn't even make back a third of its $60 million budget.