Mad Max- Fury Road

[Fez]

I hope the fact Fury Road didn't hit #1 at the box office doesn't deter those completed George Miller penned sequel scripts from happening. Normally I'd argue word of mouth should kick this film in to the top spot in its second week, but San Andreas comes out next week, so the competition for theater dollars is ever increasing. People have mentioned Dredd in here already and we know how poorly the box office reflected the quality of the film, which led to any sequels being effectively killed.

I think the 10-day total will be the real marker of whether the studio considers the movie a success. It got great word of mouth, and its rated R, so the core audience may be more willing to see it on a weeknight than most movies, and then of course there's the question of whether it can hold up against the blockbusters next week (I didn't even realize San Andreas was coming out too).

Hopefully it pulls it off. The worldwide total (including US) ended up being $109.4 million*, which does beat Pitch Perfect 2's $97.3 million worldwide total. Although they were both dwarfed by Age of Ultron, which made another $185 million (but most of that did come from China, which gives Hollywood studios only 27% of the box office gross; still impressive though).

[AndrewJ]

On the talk of how far they could go before hitting an ocean... I'm thinking perhaps the great "salt flat" probably was a dried up ocean bed (The Pacific - they were headed east, right? If it was west, then the Indian). So... 160 days to cross the Pacific ocean, probably not making great time, might be reasonable.

(But yes, carrying enough fuel, not to mention feed and water, seems... problematic)

[polishgenius]

I hope the fact Fury Road didn't hit #1 at the box office doesn't deter those completed George Miller penned sequel scripts from happening.

That it didn't make top spot might not, but that it only made 44mil off a 150million dollar budget might. Though internationally it's done better (65mil) so if it has a reasonable second weekend that should equal its budget, a fairly large step towards getting sequels made.

Dredd isn't necessarily a useful comparison because it cost a third as much but also made much, much less - that 44mil is still more than Dredd's entire worldwide gross.

[AquariumDrinker]

Fury Road was tracking to make around 40 million, so it isn't too far off. No idea if that was a number that the studio will be happy with.

[andrew_]

Fury Road was tracking to make around 40 million, so it isn't too far off. No idea if that was a number that the studio will be happy with.

It did pretty well overseas for a total of 109mil worldwide. With a budget of $150 mil not including marketing costs, it should do fine. Who knows, if its hits 350-400 mil I reckon we can expect a sequel.

[Biter]

I remember reading my brothers Heavy Metal magazines growing up. For me this movie felt rather similar - an apocalyptic wasteland, a bunch of weird characters and I'm not completely sure what's going on, but I like it.

[Pilusmagnus]

My god, was that the best movie in the history of cinema?

[The BlackBear]

and its rated R

In the States this is I take it? It's a 15 in the UK (looking it up I thought R was the equivalent of 18, but it looks like NC-17 takes that slot.)

[Fez]

In the States this is I take it? It's a 15 in the UK (looking it up I thought R was the equivalent of 18, but it looks like NC-17 takes that slot.)

Yeah, in the US. Since its for violence instead of sex I assumed other countries' ratings would be similar.

[The BlackBear]

Yeah, in the US. Since its for violence instead of sex I assumed other countries' ratings would be similar.

15-17- (and under with parental supervision) isn't as stark a difference as 15 to 18.

[Veltigar]

15-17- (and under with parental supervision) isn't as stark a difference as 15 to 18.

Lol, where I live this film is KT (which means kids allowed, unaccompanied by their parents)

The studios did research and established that most people want the trailer for a film to show the best bits from the beginning, middle and end of the film, presumably so they get a sense of the film as a whole. They want to see the images first. Is this trend due to the poor quality of many modern films, or the merciless commercialism of the industry, or the impatience of modern audiences?

They must have done their survey with data mined from the Transformers crowd. Good trailers should only show what tone a movie is going for, with the beginnings of a plot in there. It should definitely not have the best moments in the trailer, I mean, why would I pay to see a movie if I have seen the best it has to offer. Of course, often times we're lead by our naivite to go and see the film, because if they show shit like that in the trailer, the actual movie must be incredibly great. Especially comedies are guilty of that damnable offense. Anchorman II looked so great in the trailers for instance, but the actual film was just pure torture to sit through.

I agree. I find that trailers are a blessing and a curse. For instance, the new Star Wars films. On the one hand, the trailers got me super-pumped and excited to see the film. On the other hand, a decent portion of the mystery is gone. A good film is still a good film even if you're spoiled, but I prefer to go in blind.

The SW trailers are actually teasers :) Those aren't full trailers yet. I have seen the teasers, but I will definitely try to avoid all the full trailers for Star Wars. Spoilers will probably happen, because most people cutting trailers are idiots. Teasers I don't mind as much, although they have to adhere to one simple principle and that is 'convey the tone of the movie'. If they don't do that, a teaser trailer is a waste of space.

Just some random images, a little taste of the music and whatever else is needed to do that. A teaser should be as bareboned as possible. The greatest example of that, nearing - perhaps even achieving - perfection is the teaser trailer for Interstellar. The actual movie turned out to be a croc of shit, but that teaser trailer is one of the greatest things I have ever seen. So filled with hope, so intense. If I have to do something difficult, I just watch that again and I feel up for anything.

Dude, that isn't a spoiler in the way most people understand the term. Discussing that a entirely peripheral character exists in the film, unless the existence of that character reveals some significant plot point, is completely acceptable. If you genuinely want your film experience to remain so virginal that you avoid all trailers and don't even want to know about individual images unrelated to the story, then I can only suggest that you avoid reviews and discussions of the film until after you've seen it, otherwise you set the spoiler bar so low that you are absolutely going to be "spoiled".

It's a minor spoiler, but it's still a spoiler. Your point about reviews is wrong by the way. Most of us check those out before we watch a movie, so spoilers should be avoided, unless it's a specific spoilerreview. That includes flagposting a kick-ass character, because so often what contributes to making a character kick-ass is the surprise because you weren't looking for them. You ruin that by telling the audience about them. If a professional reviewers absolutely needs to gush about something, he should just make an addition spoilerreview or make steps to clearly mark his spoiler.

I hope the fact Fury Road didn't hit #1 at the box office doesn't deter those completed George Miller penned sequel scripts from happening. Normally I'd argue word of mouth should kick this film in to the top spot in its second week, but San Andreas comes out next week, so the competition for theater dollars is ever increasing. People have mentioned Dredd in here already and we know how poorly the box office reflected the quality of the film, which led to any sequels being effectively killed.

I know general audiences will probably let me down again, but am I really the only one who thinks San Andreas looks fucking terrible? The Rock is a cool dude, I like little Rickon Stark and Alexandra Daddario is a sight to behold, but a disaster movie? The seventies called, they want their favourite shitty genry back.

The story just looks boring and dull. This is the type of film you absolutely watch trailers for, because they just look pathetic. I hope with all my hearts that this bombs, because I don't want to disaster movies to be the next big thing in Hollywood after wrecking beloved Disney fairy tales with terrible storytelling, acting and CGI.

This is a movie with very very minimal dialog and the action is used purposefully used to tell the story. The fact that Splendid was willing to risk as much as she did shows how she felt, I believe the actions of the other women, specifically The Dag(Dany) also speak to how they felt. The Road Warrior was much the same way, most of what needed to be said was done via the action with little dialog, and that is was so successful shows how well Miller did.

Again, no problem whatsoever with Splendid's arc. That was well rounded,

the Dany lookalike though, should have been made aware of the possibilities, clearly those girls had been stuck in a cage far to long to know anything about abortion and the like. it would have taken under a minute of dialogue to at least show that the choice was available

[The BlackBear]

Lol, where I live this film is KT (which means kids allowed, unaccompanied by their parents)

Different classification board categories I guess. I can't remember any bad language, and while there was violence there wasn't much blood. People didn't go under the wheels as much as I expected, and there weren't any egregious screams of death.

[polishgenius]

I know general audiences will probably let me down again, but am I really the only one who thinks San Andreas looks fucking terrible? The Rock is a cool dude, I like little Rickon Stark and Alexandra Daddario is a sight to behold, but a disaster movie? The seventies called, they want their favourite shitty genry back.

I reckon San Andreas could be one of the films really affected by the overcrowding of blockbusters this year. I mean, Mad Max probably already has been, and it cost more, but with it coming out a month after Avengers and six weeks after Fast 7 (which will already have provided a fix for casual cine-Rock lovers), not to mention a week after Tomorrowland and two weeks before Jurassic World- it's really, really not got a lot of elbow room.

It's mental that two films have already reached a billion worldwide so far this year, and with at least two more to come that will hope to do the same (albeit Star Wars will have to go some to reach that mark before the new year).

[ljkeane]

San Andreas looks absolutely terrible to me, having said that though I don't like disaster movies in general.

Tomorrowland doesn't look particularly good to me either but I suppose it could at least have a little more to it than the trailers show.

[polishgenius]

Tomorrowland doesn't look particularly good to me either but I suppose it could at least have a little more to it than the trailers show.

I wasn't impressed with the trailers at all, but it's possible Disney realised they were shit because before Mad Max they ran with basically an extended clip from the film and I was quite impressed with it. Will still be waiting on reviews and word of mouth, but I might actually see it now.

[Veltigar]

San Andreas looks absolutely terrible to me, having said that though I don't like disaster movies in general.

Does anyone? Serious question here ;-)

Tomorrowland doesn't look particularly good to me either but I suppose it could at least have a little more to it than the trailers show.

I saw part of the movie in the theatre before AoU and it looked absolutely dreadful. It just kept on going and going. This will need some insanely great reviews to get me to the cinema.

I reckon San Andreas could be one of the films really affected by the overcrowding of blockbusters this year. I mean, Mad Max probably already has been, and it cost more, but with it coming out a month after Avengers and six weeks after Fast 7 (which will already have provided a fix for casual cine-Rock lovers), not to mention a week after Tomorrowland and two weeks before Jurassic World- it's really, really not got a lot of elbow room.

It's mental that two films have already reached a billion worldwide so far this year, and with at least two more to come that will hope to do the same (albeit Star Wars will have to go some to reach that mark before the new year).

Let's hope so, SA may flop. We already had a great game with that name, we don't need a stupid movie.

Different classification board categories I guess. I can't remember any bad language, and while there was violence there wasn't much blood. People didn't go under the wheels as much as I expected, and there weren't any egregious screams of death.

The Filmreview is very openminded here. They don't believe in treating children like plants. You have to go Anti-christ far to get an R-rating here.

[Jack Bauer 24]

http://ign.com/articles/2015/05/18/mad-max-fury-roads-flame-spewing-guitar-actually-works

This is pretty cool.

[Pilusmagnus]

I always believed that in order to properly develop a universe you would always need scenes useless for the plot that would otherwise be considered "filler". This movie proved me wrong.

[Roose Seal]

Loved everything about the movie except the goddamn color grading that make everything look like a orange and teal video game.

The "night" scenes were especially egregious in that regard.

It made everything look a bit too vivid and polished- even things are supposed to look grimy, dusty or dirty.. didn't really come across well at all. I wish color treatment would've been a bit more subtle.

[Jace, Extat]

I saw it yesterday (and luckily in company) and I really liked it. I think what really helped was the fact that I wasn't on the hype train, even with all those rave reviews. I think I would have enjoyed it even more if I hadn't been spoiled on some minor kick-ass developments by irrisponsible douchebag reviewers. What possesses those people to claim no spoilers and then lift these cool images out of the movie and gush about them, without any consideration for the people who have yet to see the film just escapes me. Either you do a full on spoilerreview or you keep all spoilers out. Things like

The crazy guitarplayer just fell flat for me. My friends, who weren't spoiled thought the guitarplayer was awesome,

Anyway, I'm not going to rant about the stupidity of movie reviewers. Let's talk about Max instead :D I loved the acting in this film. Tom Hardy was great and I don't really understand what bugs some people about his performance, aside from the fact that he isn't Mel Gibson. I thought he was great (Like Hardy usually is). Theron was spectacular as well, she's a real badass. I read that she and Hardy didn't get along during the making of this movie, but you really don't see anything of that tension here.

The effects were also great. When they were practical of course. One of the setpieces looked really computery to me and that did lessen my enjoyment of that scene in question. Especially since it was such a pivotal scene

the scene where Hoult sacrifices himself

In the grand scheme of things, perhaps it is just a minor detail, but the fact that it happened

near the end

was unfortunate timing.

I was also greatly intrigued by Mad Max's world. I have seen at leasts parts of either Mad Max or the Road Warrior years ago, but I hardly remember a thing about it (I must have been really young). The colourscheme and locations are just great, so different from the usual dreary post-apocalyps settings. I also can't help but love the whole mythos here.

People worshipping water and V8 engines, dreaming of Valhalla and whatever else their leaders have thrown in their religious blender.

Finaly, I love this interpretation of the Mad Max films as adaptations of a post-acalyptic King Arthur mythos revolving around the mythical figure of Max. It's a great concept and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

I... feel bad for you. You saw a picture of the guitar player and it completely ruined the film for you? That seems like a horrible way to live.