Max is going full Mad Max, with the addition of Furiosa to its streaming lineup later this month.
The first full-fledged spinoff and prequel in the Mad Max franchise, Furiosa opened in theaters earlier this summer. In terms of box office, the film was a bit of a disappointment. The movie earned $67 million in the U.S. and only $172 million worldwide, down from the $380 million of its predecessor, Mad Max: Fury Road. But ultimately that just means that there are a lot of people who have seen Fury Road who skipped Furiosa in theaters, and are going to be curious to watch it on streaming.
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The new movie stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the younger version of Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa from Fury Road, and explains how she came to hold such a crucial role in Immortan Joe’s army, and why she chose to betray him during the events of Fury Road. Like every other Mad Max movie, the film was directed and co-written by George Miller. All these Mad Max films are set in the same ruined future where society has collapsed and the few survivors are fighting over the few resources left, mostly by crashing wildly impractical vehicles into one another.
I love Fury Road (along with earlier Mad Max movies, especially The Road Warrior), and while I found Furiosa to be a worthy entry in the series, I can’t really argue it’s the best or most essential film Miller has made in this universe. As I wrote in my review of the film at the time of its theatrical release…
Like The Road Warrior before it, Mad Max: Fury Road felt like more than a movie. These are pure myths, epic and elemental, like animated cave paintings scrawled by the survivors of some ruined future. Furiosa, on the other hand, feels like a movie. A very good movie — and a great prequel by the standards of that sort of thing — but a movie nonetheless. In another franchise, it would stand as a significant achievement. In this franchise, it almost qualifies as a disappointment.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga will premiere on Max on August 16.
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