Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga has wildly underperformed at the box office in its opening weekend and serves as a stark warning to upcoming Marvel Studios productions Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts.
Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), Warner Bros. Pictures
According to The-Numbers, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga only grossed $25.5 million in its domestic opening weekend. It grossed another $33.3 million at the international box office for a worldwide gross of $58.8 million.
Based on an estimated production budget reported by Variety of $168 million, it’s highly unlikely the film will come anywhere close to breaking even at $420 million.
Not only is it unlikely to break even, but the film failed to even meet low end opening weekend estimations. Box Office Theory predicted the film would bring in at minimum $46.5 million domestically back on May 16th. Clearly, the film did not do that.
Chris Hemsworth as Warlord Dementus in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), Warner Bros. Pictures
This poor performance at the box office is a stark warning to upcoming Marvel Studios films such as Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts given that Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is billed as a Mad Max film, but does not feature Mad Max.
Pop culture analyst and critic, Gary Buechler of Nerdrotic noted this while reacting to a headline from IGN that blares: Furiosa: Why the Mad Max Movies Don’t Need Mad Max Anymore.
He simply wrote, “Turns out they do.”
Turns out they do#furiosa pic.twitter.com/S4J3W65pyt
— Nerdrotic (@Nerdrotics) May 25, 2024
And that is the stark warning this film’s disastrous opening weekend sends to Marvel. Do not make films billed with a character or team without the actual characters or team in them. Nevertheless, this is exactly what Marvel Studios is doing with their upcoming Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts films.
Captain America: Brave New World does not feature Captain America in the film at all. Instead it features Sam Wilson, Falcon, pretending to be Captain America.
Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Captain America in Marvel Studios’ CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2024 MARVEL.
And if Anthony Mackie is to be believed the film is apparently eschewing any form of comic book style storytelling by getting rid of good versus bad.
He told Entertainment Weekly, “This movie is a clear reset. It really reestablishes the idea of what this universe is and what this universe is going to be. I think with these movies, you’re getting a clear, new branding of what Marvel is headed towards the same way they did with Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Mackie continued, “The title implies that there’s a new, bigger enemy now; there’s a new frontier that we have to conquer. From Captain America: The First Avenger to Endgame, the enemy was always good versus bad. Now that we’ve conquered that, where do we go from here? When the bad guys reappear, in what form are they reappearing? It is a new storyline with new characters, with new beliefs, and it creates a new idea of this new world that we’re going into.”
(L-R): Harrison Ford as President Thaddeus Ross and Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Captain America in Marvel Studios’ CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD. Photo by Eli Adé. © 2024 MARVEL.
It is even worse for Thunderbolts. The original comic book version of the team featured the Masters of Evil in disguise. It was Citizen V, Mach-1, Songbird, Techno, Atlas, and Meteorite. However, they were actually Baron Zemo, Fixer, Beetle, Screaming Mimi, Goliath, and Moonstone.
Instead of featuring this team, the film is going to feature a female Ghost, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, the Winter Soldier, female Taskmaster, U.S. Agent, Red Guardian, and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
That’s right Marvel thought it was a good idea to populate the Thunderbolts with a bunch of characters from films that performed mediocre to terribly at the box office or were introduced in subpar television shows on Disney+.
Thunderbolts concept art by Andy Park via Kristian Harloff YouTube
Not only is Marvel focusing on a team that does not even recognize the Thunderbolts whatsoever, but the most iconic character of the team is unlikely to appear in the film.
Daniel Brühl, who plays Baron Zemo in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, also made it clear he will not appear in the film. He told ScreenRant, “I guess that if he shows up again, you really need to carefully think what is this crazy little guy up to this time around? So if the right opportunity would come, I wouldn’t say no, obviously. But for now, I’m into other things that I’m very happy with because that might have collided. I think they’re shooting [Thunderbolts] right now, so the destiny and fate always. I strongly believe in that. You just follow the path that you are offered to follow.”
Baron Zemo reveals the Thunderbolts are the Masters of Evil in disguise in Thunderbolts #1 (1997), Marvel Comics
It’s unlikely Marvel has time to course correct these two films, but the writing is on the wall. And it does not look good for these two upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe films.
What do you make of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga failing at the box office? And do you think it portends ill for the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
NEXT: Report: MCU’s Woes Due To Bad Writers, Directors, Focus On Unpopular Characters
Fans don’t forget “ “It Was Horrible”: Inside Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy’s Mad Max Feud”
Why would I suffer through Furiosa? She isn’t real. Girl bosses don’t exist behind the scenes.
Aur revoir, universe de marvel. Aur revoir.