WHY A NEW MAD MAX GAME MAY ONLY BE AN UNFORTUNATE REPEAT OF HISTORY
- Despite critical acclaim, recent Mad Max movies and games have struggled commercially, failing to meet expectations set by earlier successes.
- Mad Max: Fury Road was believed to have barely broken even at the box office, and the recently released Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is underperforming.
- The last Mad Max game in 2015 was viewed as a disappointment in sales, with Warner Bros. blaming the studio for launching on the same day as a major competitor.
The Mad Max franchise has been around for a very long time, debuting a few years after the first Star Wars, just one year after the first Superman movie, and in the same year as the first Alien. Mad Max made quite the splash when it first hit international theaters, retaining the world record for the most profitable movie ever made right up until The Blair Witch Project's release 20 years later. But every Mad Max movie hasn't been met with the same level of success.
While the first two Mad Max movies were box office smash-hits, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome began a downward spiral in the franchise's commercial success. Despite receiving critical acclaim, 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road is widely believed to have barely broken even at the box office and history seems to be repeating itself with the recently released Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. But it's not only Mad Max movies that have experienced this unfortunate commercial trend.
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The Last Mad Max Game Didn't Sell Too Well
Releasing the same year as Mad Max: Fury Road, the 2015 Mad Max game was the last time fans were given a gaming adaptation of the franchise. Unfortunately, much like its recent movie counterparts, the 2015 Mad Max game didn't fare too well when it came to sales. Though official numbers have never been released, it's been confirmed that the game was viewed as a disappointment from publisher Warner Bros.'s perspective. In a recent thread on Twitter, Avalanche Studios' former chief Christofer Sundberg stated that Warner Bros. "blamed" the studio for the game's "bad sales," which have often been attributed to the game launching on the same day as Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
Mad Max's critical reception also likely didn't help matters, with reviews at the time giving the game scores of around 7. But despite its critical and commercial reception, 2015's Mad Max has become a bit of a cult hit over the last nine years, with many fans enjoying the portrayal of its titular character, its wasteland setting, and its intriguing emphasis on vehicular combat. With there being so few Mad Max video game adaptations, there's a growing desire from fans to see another one, but that might not be the smartest choice for publishers.
A New Mad Max Game Would Probably Meet The Same Fate
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is not performing very well at the box office. In its opening weekend, Furiosa managed to make just $25.6 million at the domestic box office, which marked the lowest performance of any Memorial Day debut since 1995. And rather disappointingly, things haven't gotten much better for the long-awaited prequel. At this time, Furiosa has grossed around $160 million at the worldwide box office, which doesn't even recoup the movie's reported $168 million budget.
Despite earning some impressive critical scores across the board, Furiosa has underperformed drastically at the box office, more so than any Mad Max entry before it. Though the franchise definitely has its vocal supporters, it seems as though the Mad Max brand just doesn't hold as much weight as it once did, and unfortunately, those fans alone won't be enough to justify another fully-fledged Mad Max video game adaptation.
2024-06-23T04:33:43Z dg43tfdfdgfd