Furiosa is Australia's biggest, most expensive movie ever

August 9, 2024 3:20 AM

Eight months and 3000 people: Furiosa is Australia's biggest, most expensive movie ever. Director George Miller reveals how the latest Mad Max came to be, and why Anya Talyor-Joy was the right actor to take over from Charlize Theron.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (17 comments total)

....and biggest bomb?
posted by fairmettle at 3:29 AM on August 9 [3 favorites]

This is a PR piece posted a few days after the release of what's turned out to be a disappointment. Interesting to see the optimism/push in the moment (thank you, chariot pulled by cassowaries). I look forward more to the retrospective "what happened with that?"-type articles down the line, given its weak performance, compared to what it needed to do. Box office bombs sometimes become cult classics or are viewed as high points in their genre, but I haven't heard any serious suggestions that Furiosa is a candidate.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:06 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

Disappointment in the bean-counting sense, perhaps, but I thought it was great entertainment and a worthy addition to the saga.
posted by rory at 4:30 AM on August 9 [4 favorites]

My friends and I agreed that if Furiosa had been released before Fury Road, it would've been a huge hit. But Miller is a victim of his own success; Fury Road is a very hard act to follow, even for the same director.

I think Furiosa is very good, not Fury Road-good, but still very impressive. My overarching issue with the film is CGI and greenscreen. It's consistently noticeable, whereas in Fury Road--which actually has an enormous amount of CGI--it's not. The difference is that Furiosa at least looks like about 95% of it was filmed indoors. It just doesn't have that feel of an apocalyptic wasteland. Apparently they had the same problem that plagued the FR's first production, planned for Australia: rains came in and turned the desert into a flowery meadow, so Miller decided to just greenscreen most of it.
posted by zardoz at 4:36 AM on August 9 [2 favorites]

I thought the movie is technically well executed. The thing I noticed was I felt pretty sick as a result of violence which was depicted as it was way more personal/intimate than fury road. It also was not mindless in the way the violence in a lot films with similar plots are. I think it’s probably why it didn’t land well as a blockbuster. It definitely requires more digesting than fury road which had way less emotional notes. It will probably do well as cult classic or film school study piece.
posted by roguewraith at 4:38 AM on August 9

FanFare thread about Furiousa.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:57 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

It had terrible marketing. The earliest trailers they released looked downright half-baked CG-wise. That started off the internet buzz in a very negative way, even among Fury Road fans. Then, they took the marketing nowhere. Fury Road was already ten years old. Younger people didn't know Fury Road (I work with a bunch of 20-somethings that had maybe-sorta kinda remembered that Fury Road existed and several who never heard of any of the Mad Max stuff) so younger audiences took away that it was a new IP with bad SFX. But? It has Anya Taylor Joy, right? Well, they couldn't lean into her beauty or sex appeal very much for this film, I guess. Add in audiences trained to wait six months and watch movies at home, and the result was a bomb.
posted by SoberHighland at 6:16 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

I think the problem is: prequel disease. In my own life, the past is dead to me. I only care about the future. I feel the same about movies and their stories. Don't show me any prequels, because I probably won't care.
posted by jabah at 7:26 AM on August 9 [3 favorites]

I think the problem is: prequel disease. In my own life, the past is dead to me. I only care about the future. I feel the same about movies and their stories. Don't show me any prequels, because I probably won't care.

Results vary. The Phantom Menace is a terrible prequel to Star Wars, but The Godfather Part II is considered by most people to be as good or better than The Godfather, and Black Sails is an outstanding prequel to Muppet Treasure Island.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 9:00 AM on August 9 [5 favorites]

I feel the same about prequels. It was as good as a prequel could have been. It would have been a better movie with the same bad guys attacking the retaken Citadel years after the original movie. Anya Taylor Joy could be Furiosa's daughter.
posted by kokaku at 9:44 AM on August 9 [1 favorite]

I also avoided because I just can't be bothered to care about a prequel. Exception for the newest Wet Hot American Summer lol. I did actually try to watch Furiosa at behest of a friend, and thought it was fantastic at first! Then I eventually realized I was just watching Fury Road haha. I finished it and it was still great.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:18 AM on August 9

I enjoyed it, but I'm surprised the budget for Furiosa was similar to Fury-Road (168 million vs 150 million, factor in inflation yadda). The CGI really stood out to me in Furiosa, crossed that uncanny valley into computer game territory for me. Fury Road was exceptional for how visceral everything felt.
posted by Static Vagabond at 10:43 AM on August 9

loved both furiosa and fury road, fury road was the better movie though. Would love to spend a few hours in Miller's brain Being John Malkovich style. Or sitting in on some character naming brainstorm sessions to see what doesn't make the cut.
posted by youthenrage at 10:59 AM on August 9

jabah, I feel you, regarding prequel disease. It's not a deal-breaker for me, but I'm wary of what I call Duct Tape content. One of the most egregious offender (quelle surprise) is Disney. Most of the Disney+ TV offerings are Duct Tape content. Their purpose is to tape together the minutia of different properties for the purpose of filling out a wikipedia page for each supporting character from a movie that I may have at one time loved.

It is the opposite of art, it's a weird, completionist set-collection mechanic. It is the product of a creatively bankrupt corporation, intent only on strip-mining residual goodwill from past successes. It is the creative version of a leveraged buyout, acquire a beloved property, strip it of every last bit of value and leave the husk to die.

That is not what Furiosa is, at all. I loved Furiosa. It was not the lightning-in-a-bottle of Fury Road, but it is a character I'm invested in, and I loved the bonkers world-building of Miller's post-apocalypse Australia. I feel Miller loves this character, and I loved seeing her journey. These last two films really transported me in the way only good films can. And Larry Hemsworth was amazing.
posted by chromecow at 12:15 PM on August 9

This is a PR piece posted a few days after the release of what's turned out to be a disappointment.

Sounds like Barry is trying to kick it in the guts, then?
posted by Huggiesbear at 12:35 PM on August 9

How do you possibly follow up something like Fury Road? Especially set in that same world. Go do Babe in the Jungle or Happy Feet 4, man. You’re a genius but your work here is done.
posted by gottabefunky at 2:12 PM on August 9 [2 favorites]

i really enjoyed Furiosa, but was left feeling that Anya Taylor Joy wasn't the best choice, as least for the end. She simply isn't physically big enough, at least for the last part of the movie. I mean, it ends at the precise point that Fury Road begins. The movie covers an enormous timespan, ATJ could've played the teenage character perfectly. Charlize Theron would've been perfect to show the characters transformation after years as a laborer.
posted by Carmody'sPrize at 4:02 PM on August 9