Yikes even worse. It doesn't seem to be very low, why else bring up the film degree. As in all things there are subjective and objective aspects even in art. Stories and films in particular are full of rules that while can be broken are usually followed and have to be understood before they can be broken. Surely wherever you studied film told you to actually back up your criticisms. Why come in here make a statement and then not even back it up. You cared enough to let everyone know what you thought but not enough to even let anyone understand why? It just seems like you have nothing to actually add to this discussion and were saying something controversial for the sake of being. Being honest I am actually interested why you think the way you do about the film.

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.

There seem to be two things you don't seem to grasp (maybe that's age related):

1) most things in life are POV, not objective, and that goes double for art

2)

People will show up if a movie is appealing; we saw that with stuff like Dune, Godzilla, Mario and Barbie.

But much like with AAA gaming, budgets have ballooned out of control, discouraging creative risks in favour of appealing to the lowest common denominator, which tends to result in bland, mediocre products.

But a good film can still find an audience. Look at Godzilla Minus One late last year; it was made with a comparatively tiny budget of under $15 million, was a foreign language film which hurts is appeal to a Western audience, and had no star power behind it, yet it became a breakout hit because it was really, really good.

Well it's easy after the fact to say a hit movie had appeal, it's harder to guess before hand. A lot of people for example didn't have the Mario movie being a hit, even Barbie, I think it only dawned on some folkes about a few weeks before release that it was going to be a massive hit.

Godzilla Minus One made 116 million worldwide (56 million in the US) which is impressive given it's a Japanese language film with a small budget, but Furiosa has already made more than that or is about to. 

Mad Max isn't really a hit franchise, even the Mel Gibson one's peaked with Beyond Thunderdome, and Beyond Thunderdome was the 18th biggest domestic grosser of 1985 below things like Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Fury Road, the franchise's "break out" wasn't even a top 20 worldwide hit for 2015, coming in below a flop like Terminator Genisys. 

Mad Max is a niche franchise, if anything Fury Road probably overperformed as 2015 was a boom time for ticket sales and Charlize Theron was a fairly big star still. 

The first mad max was actually a big success, making 100 million worldwide and settling a record for being the most profitable film ever at the time. But after that the series became more niche, with the 2 sequels only making a fraction of that. The near 30 year gap between thunderdome and fury road likely didn't help with keeping the series relevant to the general public.

Despite road warrior being considered a classic by many people, it is not a film that many seem to have actually seen compared to other action classics like terminator 1 and 2.

Ok got it, so you don't actually have anything to back up your pov or add to the discussion. Honestly would have assumed you were a teenager if you hadn't said you were in your 50s. 

Hence my point; with ballooning budgets, you can't afford to sink it into something like a Mad Max spinoff.

I think their logic was Mad Max Fury Road was basically a Furiosa movie anyway with Mad Max just tagging along. 

With Theron and Hardy not getting along, I think they figured "hey well, we know the audience likes Furiosa, so lets make a Furiosa prequel where we don't have to deal with either actor". 

Probably made some sense around 2017 or so on paper anyway. 

Unfortunately for them they didn't realize the downturn the movie industry was headed for with COVID. I also don't think this movie really expands Furiosa's story all that much, we know already more or less she was abducted as a child from a paradise like area and we know already what happens regarding her quest to get back home. Furiosa as a movie really doesn't provide any great new twist on what we could already have assumed. 

The concept just isn't good enough to justify a standalone movie. Knowing that Furiosa is not going to get back to her home also basically robs the story of any tension. 

The market right now box office wise post COVID is brutal, I would say probably every movie today would make 25-30% more box office if it had been released pre-COVID. The nature of streaming and people not going to theaters for 18+ months really did a number on everything. 

And let me guess, you're in your mid 20s - still with misguided passion for wasting time in debates, and for all the wrong reasons?