Why Furiosa Just Flopped
6. Nobody Asked For A Fury Road Prequel
Perhaps the single most obvious thing that hurt Furiosa was that it was, in effect, a film that few were actively asking for.
There was considerable audience hunger for a Fury Road sequel starring at least Charlize Theron if not also Tom Hardy, but a prequel story which flings us back in time while recasting Furiosa and ditching Max entirely? Ehhh.
Even accepting the quality filmmaking on offer, Furiosa isn't entirely free of "prequelitis" - that is, unnecessarily filling in an IP's past history.
More to the point, there's been a notable trend of "prequel fatgiue" in recent years, from the surprise flop of Solo: A Star Wars Story, to last year's Hunger Games prequel doing only so-so business, and proving even the horror genre isn't safe, the recent The First Omen also underperformed.
Miller evidently told the story he wanted to tell, but in retrospect it's tough not to consider whether a direct sequel to Fury Road would've been the better option - certainly commercially, if not also artistically.