Mad Max: Furiosa flop hits Aussie cinemas in ‘disastrous’ 2024 box office

It was supposed to be a hit.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga boasted Aussie Hollywood heart-throb Chris Hemsworth and rising star Anya Taylor-Joy in a beloved franchise, effusive critical praise including a six-minute standing ovation at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France and a worldwide marketing campaign propelled by entertainment giant Warner Bros.

But the action-packed extravaganza flopped, pulling in just $32m across the US four-day Memorial Day weekend, below a projected $40m haul, for a $59m worldwide take, according to Box Office Mojo.

The film’s mammoth $170m budget means it is now in a fight to break even.

Furiosa is the latest disappointment in a string of dramatic failures to hit the 2024 box office and the effects are being felt everywhere, from Los Angeles to forlorn cinema operators across regional Australia.

For Stephen Goddard, the manager of a three-screen cinema in the coal mining town of Emerald in Central Queensland, the flops could spell the end of movie-going in western Queensland.

“Furiosa is actually a really good movie, but it won’t matter,” he told NewsWire.

“We will probably shut down, quite truthfully, and I know that Mount Isa is in the same boat. I have spoken to them and they are looking at it.”

“That will just about mean, you don’t have a cinema alive in the west at all.

“I can pretty confidently say we won’t get to December.”

The drop off in revenue at the cinema is stark.

Mr Goddard said he had sold just 222 tickets for Furiosa in its first week.

Ordinarily, a hit would sell 1050 tickets in a week.

“It has followed the same pattern as the Fall Guy, Planet of the Apes, Indiana Jones,” he said.

“And yet every exit comment I’m getting is, ‘gee that was good.’

“They are sort of coming out and surprised it was good.”

Across Australia, Furiosa collected $3.3m in its opening weekend, according to Numero.

Aussie Cinema Attendance 2000-2023

Barbie and Top Gun: Maverick were Mr Goddard’s last two “big hits”, each selling more than 3000 seats over a four-week run.

But the decline appears to be structural.

“If you roll back to 2006 to 2009, the top movies did 4500, 5000 seats,” he said.

“And there were a lot more of them. I would have three or four or those movies a year.”

“We did 66,000 seats all through that period, from 2005 to 2009.

“We will do possibly 30,000 seats this year if we are lucky.

“Those are the cold hard facts and our costs have gone through the roof of course. Electricity costs are outrageous.

“How we are still here is beyond me.”

There are multiple reasons for the slow collapse.

The Covid pandemic and associated lockdowns hammered cinemas and many are struggling to return to 2019 attendance levels.

In 2023, Numero recorded 58.1 million Australian cinema admissions, compared to 84.7m in 2019.

The advent of streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon Prime, and improvements in home TV technology, mean movie-lovers can swiftly access quality entertainment from the comfort of home.

And twin strikes from the screen actors’ union and the writers guild shuttered production across Hollywood from May to November in 2023.

Cinema operators are essentially receptacles for the content produced in America and the 2023 strikes blew up the pipeline.

“We understood we were going to go into a tough period with the writers’ strike and coming out of that,” Mr Goddard aid.

“We’re not out of that yet really.”

There is also a simmering sense of fear that Hollywood’s creative power could be fading.

“In my opinion, I look at a lot of movies, we’ve had a lot of the Indian Joneses, the Furiosas, the Planet of the Apes, they seem to be very matter of fact movies,” Mr Goddard said.

“It’s almost as if there has been a formula going on and it has failed dismally.”

To survive, Mr Goddard said cinemas would likely have to diversify and establish new income streams separate from movies within the cinema complex, such as adding in bowling alleys or new dining or cafe options.

“There will be a lot of us who will not do that because we simply don’t have the capital,” he said.

But Cameron Mitchell, the executive director of Cinema Association Australasia, presents a more hopeful assessment, and said 2024 ticket sales would likely match 2023 at 58 million and the industry was “bullish” about 2025 and 2026.

“Coming out of Cinemacon in Las Vegas in April and the Cinema Association Australasia’s recent content showcase in Sydney, the local industry is bullish about the coming three years,” he told NewsWire.

“The 2024 box office is expected to be flat on 2023, only due to the reduction in content releasing which can be attributed to the now resolved actors and writers strikes in 2023.

“Importantly however, the local and international studios have been adjusting their line-ups to ensure a solid slate in 2024 and beyond, and we expect to see over 100 films releasing in Australian cinemas between now and year end.

“The box office in 2024 will be boosted by the investment that local Australian exhibitors have made in upgrading their existing cinemas and developing new experiences, with new cinemas being offered nationally including Event’s IMAX Sydney location, Reading Cinema’s Angelika cinema in Woolloongabba and the Dendy Powerhouse Outdoor Cinema in New Farm. In January, IMAX Sydney was the best performing IMAX screen in the world, and as of March, IMAX Sydney was the third highest grossing IMAX cinema globally.

He also said tech giants Apple and Amazon had both committed to investing $1bn annually in creating and marketing cinema content.

“(It) highlights the appeal of cinema, even to streaming companies,” he said.