Why Furiosa Just Flopped
2. It Failed To Appeal To Women
Given that Fury Road was widely praised by critics for its feminist themes and for creating a new iconic female action hero in Furiosa, it was simply assumed that this prequel would bring women out to the cinema.
Yet early audience polling from Furiosa's opening weekend has the viewership skewing heavily male, with women accounting for just 28% of moviegoers so far.
For a female-led action film, that immediately places a ceiling on its commercial potential, and speaks to the film's wider inability to, for whatever reason, present itself as more than a quote "Guy Movie."
You can blame the marketing or the fact that Charlize Theron isn't back, but it may simply be that women at large aren't terribly interested in seeing a male-centric franchise steered their way, as opposed to an action franchise which is female-led from the ground-up.
Whatever the reason, for all of the film's good intent, it failed to sell itself to women in a meaningful way, ensuring a major portion of the customer base was never going to turn up.