I'll be honest too I like Mad Max but it's a pretty "hardcore" IP for a "normal Joe/Jane going to the movies on a Saturday" type of thing. The world is honestly quite unpleasant and there's lot of things like the war boys spraying paint on their face and stuff that I just think flies over the head of "normal movie goer" (why is there a guy playing guitar in the middle of a car chase, etc. etc.). It's hardcore sci-fi/fantasy if you want to classify it as such (post-apocalyptic sub genre).
The whole "car chase movie" subgenre is also very like 70s/80s ... it's a pretty dated central mechanic for a film these days unless you are in the Fast & Furious world.
Fury Road had a good looking cast at least going for it (Charlize Theron + several supermodels + to a lesser extent Tom Hardy who was maybe a B-list star at that point), no offense to Ana Taylor Joy but she's not really a star, let alone a "big star" at this point. Charlize Theron was at the time an A-list star. Dune has Chamalet and Zendaya going for it, that helps it cross over to non-hardcore scifi fans.
