Why Furiosa Just Flopped
3. Mad Max Is A Niche Franchise
As popular as Fury Road proved to be with fans of the series and Oscar voters, Mad Max is still fundamentally an incredibly niche franchise.
The unhinged quirkiness of its world and characters makes it immediately unappealing to vast swaths of the moviegoing mainstream, ensuring that, as an IP, it lacks the same cultural cachet of other long-running franchises.
Furiosa also ended up nabbing an underwhelming "B+" CinemaScore with audiences - the very same score as Fury Road.
This further indicates a certain disconnect with casual moviegoers across both movies and the franchise as a whole, that there are always going to be those who find George Miller's weirdo auteurship offputting, beloved though it is by his hardcore fanbase.
And again, given that Fury Road itself didn't explode at the box office, it's clear that the IP fundamentally isn't compatible with the mega-budget treatment.
Considering that the first three Mad Max movies cost a grand total of roughly $15 million, so much should've been obvious to the studio.