'Furiosa' And The Post-Apocalyptic Box Office Wasteland
#274: "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," "The Blue Angels," "Almost Famous," "MoviePass, MovieCrash"
Edition 274:
Hey movie lovers!
This week: A prequel to one of the great action movies of the 21st century, which has convinced everyone that theatrical moviegoing is dead (for the 10000th time). Then a documentary that will make you scream AMERICA! and another that will make you wish for a simpler time. Plus my favorite movie of all time. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” George Clooney and Brad Pitt are teaming back up.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
You may have heard that Furiosa didn’t perform well at the box office this weekend. I mean how could you not, when every single podcast, newsletter, blog and news outlet with a passing interest in the entertainment industry has been using its as proof of the moviegoing apocalypse.
Let’s get nerdy about money real quick, because I’m not buying this as a huge disappointment. Comparing Furiosa, a prequel to a movie that came out nine years ago and wasn’t even a huge hit then (better times for movie theaters), to Memorial Day blockbusters of the past two years (The Little Mermaid and Top Gun: Maverick) was always going to be illogical. This was never going to be a world-conquering hit (no matter how much Warner Bros. hoped it would be, since their summer calendar is so barren).
If Marvel’s Wolverine & Deadpool had opened this weekend, as was the plan before production was delayed due to last year’s writers and actors strikes, it would’ve done really good business (maybe $100 million domestic?) and all the prognosticators would be changing their tune.
But see, that’s (somehow) a four-quadrant movie — Hollywood parlance for appealing to older/younger males + older/younger females. Furiosa is a two-quadrant movie: 75% of its viewers this weekend were male. It opened at $32 million in the United States ($66 million global). Garfield, which also opened around $30 million ($99 million global), is also a two-quadrant movie (young people).
So my theory is that in the new theater-going landscape, this is the new normal for two-quadrant movies. They make $25-45 million opening weekend, and top out between $200-300 million.
If that’s the case, then the thing that needs to change is movie budgets. Garfield was made on the cheap, for only $60 million, so it will eventually be profitable for Sony. As a rough rule of thumb, think 2.5x the production budget to reach profitability. Furiosa, on the other hand, made for $170 million with another ~$100 million in marketing costs, is going to be a money drain for Warners. Anyone But You is being held up as the success story of the year ($205 million gross on a $25 million budget) while The Fall Guy is the bomb of the year ($145 million so far but on a $140 million budget).
But it’s a Catch-22, because less budget means less spectacle, and conventional wisdom says the only thing that draws big crowds into theaters now is can’t-miss spectacle. It’s a really tough spot for the business this year, especially because it’s an extremely weak slate. That’s why studio execs and theater owners have taken up the mantra “Survive to ‘25!” when the lineup is packed with sure-fire hits.
For a lot more details on all the box office business stuff, check out my appearance on “Forbes Talks,” where I go into greater detail:
Still, I have a feeling that most people reading this are not pouring one out for the profit margins of Warner Bros. Studios. You don’t care how much a movie costs if it’s good. And I don’t blame you.
If anything, we should be celebrating that director George Miller snuck one past the penny-pushing goalkeepers here. All $170 million of those budget dollars can be seen on the screen in Furiosa, which mixes Miller’s unparalleled practical action filmmaking techniques with digital effects to make the second most visually compelling movie of the year so far (coincidentally, also the second best by my estimation, with Dune 2 beating it in both categories).
In the lead-up to this movie, I rewatched 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, as I said I would a few weeks ago in this newsletter. I think the same reason I didn’t like the movie the first time I watched it — which, importantly, was before I started watching a ton of movies or thinking deeply about them — is the exact same reason why I thought it was a masterpiece the second time around.
Fury Road is an adventure movie that never zooms out to explain itself. We get thrown into the action right away and follow the single thread all the way through from basically one perspective. It’s basically a two-hour, non-stop action scene that develops story and character along the way but never takes its foot off the pedal. There isn’t a lot of dialogue, or story, which probably tripped me up because I felt like all they do is drive out and drive back. But now I realize how much I prefer the simplicity to the usual bloated blockbuster plots.
That’s important to note in relation to Furiosa, because this prequel is far more interested in world-building and exposition. It’s a more conventional movie, to its own detriment (people who read my Apes review know what I mean when I say it’s 2hr21min). The stakes are inherently lower because we know which characters are going to survive on to the next movie, and there’s several plot points that feel exclusively like fan service.
The movie is best when it’s moving fast, with a handful of absolutely incredible action set pieces. And while it’s fair to say it all looks similar to Fury Road, and you probably have never met a filmmaker who loves big rigs more than Miller, he’s doing those action scenes as well as anyone can.
Things wane when people stop to chat. This is by far the talkiest Mad Max movie, and its characters — with names like Dementus, Immortan Joe and Rictus Erectus — aren’t exactly the most subtle and nuanced people to explore. Chris Hemsworth’s prosthetic nose tells you just about all you need to know about the guy, yet he is motor-mouthing like Rodney Dangerfield. Even Anya Taylor-Joy is given a couple speeches, enough to remind us she’s not Charlize Theron.
I don’t want to complain too much, because even this imperfect movie (that falls far short of its predecessor) offers a viewer so much more to chew on and enjoy than the other stuff that’s been coming out these past few months. This is a very good movie.
I actually think the best way to do it, if you have the time to kill and haven’t seen either movie, would be to watch them in chronological order. Furiosa first, which gives the context and backstory you need to then fully enjoy the adrenaline rush that is Fury Road.
Something New
The Blue Angels (Amazon Prime): ‘Oh, you liked Top Gun: Maverick?’ asked a star-studded producing group that included Glenn Powell and J.J. Abrams — well then here’s a documentary on real life pilots doing crazy stuff shot with IMAX cameras, now with EVEN MORE uuu-rah ‘Merica propaganda.
There’s very little conflict or drama in this story, which follows a year in the life of a Blue Angels pilot from training in the winter through touring, recruiting, evaluating and selecting the new crop of pilots. It’s a process movie, simple as that. In order to pull off the difficult maneuvers the Blue Angels attempt, the pilots must basically turn themselves into robots, following the same routine every day for months on end. That’s interesting, but not exactly the most compelling thing to watch, so a viewer is left feeling something closer to appreciation for accomplishing a difficult goal, even if the stakes are relatively low (the stakes are life and death, sure, but the Blue Angels aren’t saving the world either).
That’s all incidental to the real project here, which is also the core mission of the Blue Angels, to promote the U.S. Navy (and to a much lesser extent, the Marines). Two hours of clean cut American dudes (yes, all dudes) with a conviction for service to country and each other is in some ways an antidote to a lot of the other crap I watch on a weekly basis.
Something Old
Almost Famous (2000, Pluto, Paramount+): Here’s a practice I think more aspiring cinephiles should consider adopting. Pick a favorite movie. It doesn’t have to be the “greatest” movie, but one that you love the most. Then each time you rewatch it (I hold myself to once per year), make it an all-out event. I’m talking clear the calendar, put the phone away, dark room, big screen, volume all the way up.
When I do that for my personal favorite movie, it’s almost like a time machine back into the 1970s rock n’ roll scene. I can easily see myself in our protagonist, a teenage journalist given the assignment of writing about a band’s nationwide tour for Rolling Stone magazine. The more times I’ve seen the movie (and the extended cut), I can see where the seams are showing and why I’d never consider it among the all-time great films, but every time it achieves what is for me the ultimate barometer of success: total immersion in the world. This particular world I wish I could live inside of, and for two hours every year, I do just that.
Something to Stream
MoviePass, MovieCrash (Max): I remember the first time I heard about MoviePass, when I was in college and first getting really into going to the movies. Go to theaters as many times as you want for $10 a month? No way. That has to be too good to be true right?
Yes, it turns out. A new HBO documentary retells the dramatic rise and fall of the company — part of this trend of media that can basically be boiled down to, “hey, remember that crazy pop culture thing that happened a few years ago? That was crazy right?” The funny thing here is, there really isn’t much more to explain to the story. MoviePass was sustainable at ~$40/month, but at that price only a small number of people wanted it. At $10/month everyone wanted it, but it lost them tons of money. Case closed!!
Everything else is basically just corporate politics. And this movie certainly has a point of view on the inter-office drama. The movie focuses on the tale of two black cofounders who were muscled out of their own company by slick white guys with unicorn aspirations. In what’s now a well-known Silicon Valley tale (WeWork, Uber etc.), the company spent lavishly and had a grand ol’ time aboard their Titanic before eventually hitting the bankruptcy iceberg.
Personally, I’m not bitter about any of it. In many ways, MoviePass is what fueled my early passion for movies and enabled me on a college kid budget to see everything that was released and become fluent in the language and culture of movies. I’m not sure this documentary has tons of revelations and insights offer people who didn’t ride the MoviePass rollercoaster for those few brief years, but if you did, it’s fun to get a peak behind the curtain.
Trailer Watch: Wolfs
There are movie team-ups that make you say, “wow, how did they get those two together?!” like De Niro and Pacino in Heat, Denzel and Julia Roberts in The Pelican Brief, or honestly, George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Ocean’s Eleven.
Then there’s the new trailer for Wolfs, in which the appearance of Clooney and Pitt feels…a little desperate? Especially with Clooney reprising the role of a fixer (echoing Michael Clayton, arguably the best role of his career), it feels like two aging stars trying to hang on to relevance by playing the greatest hits from years gone by, and a streaming service in Apple that’s more than happy to pay up big for exactly that.
Let me be clear: I HOPE I’M WRONG! Clooney and Pitt had legendary chemistry in Ocean’s and this is an original thriller, so I’m very much hoping it’s great. But I doubt it.