AHC: Mad Max: Fury Road is finacially successful but critically maligned

[Mister Abbadon]

Mad Max was well received, both by critics and audiences. But Financially speaking it only barely broke even and was a cost to the studio.

The challenge, either by changing the movie itself, changing the circumstances of its release, or both, is to make it make enough money to be considered a massive success for the studio, but generally reviewed as adequate to poor by audiences and critics.

 

[thekingsguard]

not sure if this shouldn't be in 1900s forum, but...

For financial success, not costing $150 million (and around $100 million in marketing on top of that) would be a great place to start. I'm still shocked that it cost more than the entire OG Mad Max trilogy, yet at times, looked significantly worse (hello painfully CGI sandstorm!).

Frankly, I'm shocked the movie earned an R-rating. As an action junkie, I found the violence and action for the most part to be downright tame. Giving it a PG-13 rating might have helped.

Not opening it the same month as a goddamned Avengers movie DEFINITELY would have helped. Get it released in July, which in 2015, was shockingly bare of any offerings, in part because that was when Batman v. Superman was supposed to open, but it got kicked to March 2016. When they kick BvS to 2016, move Fury Road to July, where it would be set to have the box office to itself for a good chunk of the month.

As for critics, I'm not sure. I was one of the few film critics to give it a "thumbs down", so I'm not sure what everyone else saw. Have a lot more people slam the movie for its bare bones heroes journey plot, the fact the movie plot can be boiled down to "they drove really far and turned around", paper thin characters, reducing Max to a mute sidekick, any number of things. Have a scandal about the environmental damage the movie caused in Namibia get out.

One other thing that would help in terms of critical reception is if WB wouldn't have pushed it on the studio's Oscar slate as hard as they did, even at the cost of their other movies that had a better shot at winning awards, the big loser being Creed. They did so because the movie failed to turn a profit for the studio, and hoped a few Oscars might get investors to back a sequel (it didn't). ITTL, let's say Creed does even better at the box office, so WB makes it it's Oscar Centerpiece rather than Fury Road, with most of its OTL nominations and wins going to either Creed, The Martian or Star Wars, along with Stallone winning Best Supporting Actor, and Ryan Coogler becoming the youngest director nominated for both best director and Best Picture.

There you have it. Mad Max Fury Road doesn't lose money, and doesn't get hyped as the "best action movie EVOR" by a bunch of dipsticks that are too lazy to rent The Raid, and Sly Stallone is an Oscar Winner. Net gain in my book

 

[Emperor Julian]

To trash the critical reception, make Furiosa a much weaker character, maybe even make her a somewhat romantic love interest with some damsel in distress type problems. Then CGI the cars and all of the action scenes, reducing actual stunts to a minimum.

 

[Gaius Julius Magnus]

I agree with the above post by thekingsguard that I didn't like Fury Road, so trying to make the movie worse (in terms of it's lack of story and content) in my opinion wouldn't be that hard.

Too make it more financially successful, maybe WB tries to repeat the success of The Lego Movie and releases it in a dead month like February or March. Sort of like how Deadpool did really well in February despite being an R-rated film.

 

[PachPachis]

To trash the critical reception, make Furiosa a much weaker character, maybe even make her a somewhat romantic love interest with some damsel in distress type problems. Then CGI the cars and all of the action scenes, reducing actual stunts to a minimum.

Oh, you’re evil. How would you like a position at [insert film studio of choice here]?