2024 Action Movie With 90% RT Score Finds New Success On Netflix After $173M Box Office Disappointment

2024 has been a relatively strong year for the action genre. Jason Statham's The Beekeeper started the year off on a high note, becoming a surprise hit. The film did so well, in fact, that The Beekeeper 2 is now confirmed to be on the way. After Dune: Part Two dazzled audiences with its sci-fi action, movies like Monkey Man and The Fall Guy hit theaters, with the latter disappointing at the box office but faring well with critics and audiences.

The summer and fall saw the release of a handful of other notable titles in the action genre, including Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which was a hit, and Twisters, a well-received reboot of the 1996 classic. Wolfs also featured plenty of action, as did Ridley Scott's Gladiator 2. Another title that hit theaters earlier in the year earned overwhelmingly positive reviews despite failing to make much of a mark at the box office, delivering a brand of post-apocalyptic action that hadn't been seen in nine years.

Furiosa Is A Major Hit On Streaming

The Mad Max Prequel Makes Netflix's Top 10

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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is experiencing newfound success on Netflix following its disappointing theatrical run. Hitting theaters in May and directed by franchise veteran George Miller, the prequel to 2015's Fury Road sees Anya Taylor-Joy taking on the role of Furiosa, a character previously portrayed by Charlize Theron. Furiosa reviews were generally very positive, and the film has a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but it ultimately disappointed at the box office, grossing $173 million on an estimated budget of $168 million.

Related Every Mad Max Movie, Ranked Worst To Best George Miller has made five Mad Max movies in the post-apocalyptic franchise, but their quality can vary. The Mad Max movies ranked reveals the best.

Though the film struggled to get audiences to theaters, it's now striking a chord at home on streaming. Per FlixPatrol, Furiosa: Mad Max Saga ranks, as of writing, as the eighth most popular movie on Netflix on January 3, 2025. It beats titles like The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) and Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (2024). It falls short of others like In the Heart of the Sea (2015), and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024), with Carry-On (2024) ultimately claiming the top spot. Check out the full top 10 list below:

Netflix Top 10 (Jan. 3, 2025) 1 Carry-On 2 The Six Triple Eight 3 Interstellar 4 The Watchers 5 Dune: Part Two 6 Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire 7 In the Heart of the Sea 8 Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga 9 The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water 10 Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1

What Furiosa's Streaming Success Means For The Movie

Will There Be Another Mad Max Film?

Around the time of Furiosa's release, there was talk of another movie in the franchise in the form of Mad Max: The Wasteland, an idea that's been kicking around since the release of Fury Road. This movie would presumably bring Tom Hardy back as Max and potentially Theron back as Furiosa since it is said to serve as a sequel to Fury Road. Addressing The Wasteland, Hardy told ET in October that, while he doesn't have any information about the movie's status, he'd "love to do that."

Miller has also revealed that he mapped out exactly what happened to Max in the year leading up to the events of Fury Road, which could be its own movie.

Furiosa's box office, however, casts a lot of doubt on The Wasteland or any other Mad Max movie happening in the near future. Even with the prequel's promising streaming performance, the film was likely looking at a break-even point of somewhere around $336 million, a goal it clearly fell very far short of. It's unlikely that streaming success will be enough to move the needle on another Mad Max movie after Furiosa, at least one made at the same budget level. But, at the very least, viewers are clearly now enjoying Miller's new prequel at home.

Source: FlixPatrol