Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth starred in the fifth film of George Miller’s Mad Max franchise, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. The film focuses on the early life of Imperator Furiosa who was played by Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road. The prequel is set about 15 to 20 years before the events of Fury Road and tells the story of how Furiosa became an Imperator.
Unfortunately, despite the hype surrounding its predecessor, Furiosa went on to bomb at the box office. On the other hand, though, the film has received great reviews from both critics and fans alike. In fact, the OG Furiosa, Charlize Theron also believes that the film is absolutely “amazing.”
Charlize Theron Praises Furiosa Despite Horrible Box Office Performance
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga was released in theatres on the 24th of May this year. While critics mostly had positive things to say about the movie, this wasn’t reflected in its box office performance.
As per The Numbers, Furiosa was made on a budget of $168 million and the film made $172.7 million at the worldwide box office. According to Variety’s report, insiders revealed that Anya Taylor-Joy’s film needed to bring in around $350 to $375 million in order to turn a profit. However, the report also added that a Warner Bros. spokesperson refuted this and stated that Furiosa has a lower breakeven point.
Despite the disappointing box office run, Charlize Theron thought that the film was both amazing and beautiful. While holding the fourth annual block party for the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project, Theron spoke with The Hollywood Reporter and shared her views on Furiosa.
Theron stated, “It’s amazing, it’s a beautiful film,” before adding that she still has not been able to sit down and have a proper conversation with Taylor-Joy about the film due to their busy schedules.
No, we’ve really been trying to connect. It’s been one of those — we can actually make a comedy out of it. We keep running into each other and in places when we don’t have time to really talk to each other, so we’re constantly like, ‘Oh my god, OK, let’s get together!’ And then life takes over. But it will happen when it’s right.
While the film did not make waves at the box office, Theron sure is right about Furiosa being a beautiful film and critics wholeheartedly agree with her.
Critics Were Raving about Furiosa
On Rotten Tomatoes, Furiosa has a pretty impressive score of 90% on the Tomatometer and an 89% approval rating from the audience. Clearly, people loved the film.
As per the critical consensus,
Retroactively enriching Fury Road with greater emotional heft if not quite matching it in propulsive throttle, Furiosa is another glorious swerve in mastermind George Miller’s breathless race towards cinematic Valhalla.
Additionally, The Guardian called Taylor-Joy an “overwhelmingly convincing action heroine” while Empire gave the film five out of five stars. The critics also praised Chris Hemsworth for his portrayal of the antagonist with The Washington Post calling him “one of the all-time-great screen villains.”
Furiosa was released on VOD (Video on Demand) on June 24 and the results were quite incredible. The film topped the iTunes VOD chart for July 01 and retained the number one spot on the Fandango at Home chart for the week of 24 to 30 June. The VOD performance was perhaps a sigh of relief for the Furiosa team after its box office struggle.
It looks like the era of theatres is slowly coming to an end with fans saving trips to the cinema hall for only the best of the best.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is available to rent/buy on Prime Video.
