The False Hope Of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ And ‘Pitch Perfect 2’

Yes, today is the fifth anniversary of the theatrical release of Mad Max: Fury Road. It rode a wave of “You won’t believe how good it is!” buzz and reviews to open with a best-case-scenario $46 million domestic before legging out to $153 million. Alas, due to a $150 million budget, and a lack of a play date in China, it “only” earned $375 million global, meaning it wasn’t so much a breakout smash but a “we’ll break even eventually” noble victory. The Tom Hardy/Charlize Theron flick has topped its share of “best of 2010’s” lists, and it may be on the top of mine give or take Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity at any given moment in time.

The top-ranked movie on this weekend five years ago was actually Universal’s Pitch Perfect 2. Opening 2.5 years after its leggy predecessor ($65 million domestic from a $5 million limited-release debut in October of 2012) became a cult favorite, the Anna Kendrick sequel became a true-blue breakout sequel, doing what only a few sequels had done before. It opened with $69 million in its domestic Fri-Sun debut, joining Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Terminator 2: Judgment Day in having eclipsed the entire domestic gross of its predecessor in just its domestic opening weekend. The film was frontloaded, for sure, but the $17 million musical comedy would earn $188 million domestic and $289 million worldwide.

It was just one of Universal’s major “A-level” theatrical releases aimed at “not a white guy” moviegoers, joining Furious 7, Straight Out of Compton, Trainwreck and Sisters (even Jurassic World’s protagonist was not Chris Pratt but Bryce Dallas Howard) in helping them studio Disney in global market share. Looking at the unexpected commercial and critical triumph of Mad Max: Fury Road and the relative wins for the likes of Spy (the Melissa McCarthy action comedy would earn more overseas than it would in North America) Pitch Perfect 2 and even the female-fronted Star Wars: The Force Awakens provided hope that A) audiences would show up for big “not a white guy” blockbusters and B) onscreen representation would run parallel to social progress.  

As far as a definitive acceptance of onscreen protagonists that weren’t just white dudes, the various 2015 blockbusters seemed like the end game in an ongoing battle for big female-led movies to not just succeed on the level of their male-centric peers but be allowed to fail without casting judgement on an entire gender. Just a week later, Walt Disney’s Tomorrowland would underperform with a $42 million domestic debut on the way to a mere $209 million global cume on a $190 million budget. There was plenty of finger-wagging, but nobody blamed Britt Robertson and Raffey Cassidy which in itself felt like progress. By July, Universal’s Minions, starring Sandra Bullock, would top $335 million domestic and $1.1 billion worldwide.

The twin success of Mad Max: Fury Road (which, like previous Mad Max sequels, put its title character in a glorified sidekick role, this time in service of Theron’s instantly iconic Furiosa) and Pitch Perfect 2 (an A-level summer blockbuster starring, written by and directed by women) that the successes of such movies, often written off as flukes with the likes of Twilight, Bridesmaids, Hunger Games, Frozen and Fault in Our Stars, might now be seen as par for the course. The success of Daisy Ridley and John Boyega’s Force Awakens, which raced past the $2 billion mark worldwide and $937 million domestic (above even Avatar’s $760 million cume) seemed to be the killing blow  for this sort of  “conventional wisdom.”

As for the whole “representation equals progress” notion, we were just weeks away from the Supreme Court making gay marriage legal nationwide. Furthermore, we all assumed we were 18 months away from electing our first female president. There was a case to be made that positive onscreen depictions of non-hetero characters and couplings in everything from Will and Grace and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry to (metaphorically speaking) Ted 2 paved the way for societal acceptance of the concept. As far as presidential politics, even The Purge: Election Year, slated for July 4, 2016, presumed the GOP presidential contender would more closely resemble the likes of Rick Santorum or Ted Cruz than eventual nominee Donald Trump.  

The simple, obviously in retrospect simplistic, idea was that onscreen (and offscreen) representation would provide a counterbalance to stereotypes and tropes related to various underrepresented demographics, which in turn would coincide with (too slow, to be sure) real world social progress. More and better onscreen representation would be of value not just to the folks wanting to see themselves onscreen but to those used to being catered to in terms of presenting an alternative narrative beyond villain, sidekick and/or love interest. If this sounds hopelessly naïve five years later, we should note that A) the presumption was that progress would continue in a relatively upward direction and B) this is one of the core tenets of Ryan Murphy’s recently-released Hollywood Netflix mini-series.

What happened? Well, Americans voted in large enough numbers in enough states for Donald Trump for his electoral college victory to negate Hillary Clinton’s popular vote triumph. The last few years of “representation matters” pictures big (Black Panther) and small (Get Out) have been received less as an affirmation and more as a glorified protest action. Sure, the political shocker may have turned Rogue One into an even bigger blockbuster and made Wonder Woman into a political zeitgeist item. However, it’s hard to read too much into their commercial successes after countless Americans flocked to Mad Max: Fury Road and then voted for a guy who was popular BECAUSE he seemed to relish acting like Hugh Keays-Byrne’s Immortan Joe.

Either audiences were oblivious to the political commentary found in their allegedly progressive blockbusters, willfully misread them (a generation of YA fantasies like Hunger Games, Divergent and Maze Runner with Hillary Clinton-look-alike villains probably didn’t help) or they just didn’t care. Either way, the idea that a nation raised on aspirational entertainment would seek out aspirational political leaders (or have aspirational political ideas) was debunked, either because it wasn’t true or because those so inspired were more inclined to complain on Twitter than actually go out and vote. Perhaps concurrently, the idea took hold that folks would almost certainly be consuming mass entertainment in the worst possible way, which brought about a rise in “depiction equals endorsement” media criticism.

The other false hope is slightly more complicated. 2015, at least until the last few months of the year, represented perhaps the last time that audiences could be expected to go to the movies just to go to the movies. In a process that happened almost overnight, a shifting in the viewership landscape moved from theaters to at-home streaming and VOD. The big event movies, specifically the DC/Marvel comic book movies, the big talking animal toons and certain key franchise properties, would still flourish in theaters. But almost everything else, including almost all outright original content, would face a new normal where audiences would binge Netflix shows versus catching anything other than the biggest of big movies in theaters.

Five years later, Disney owns Fox and the studio programmer is essentially dead. Disney nostalgia and Marvel/DC superhero movies rule with an iron fist, and the kind of diverse/inclusive entertainment that was greenlight to capitalize on (or were inspired by) on the successes of 2015 (Widows, Blinded By the Light, Queen of Katwe, etc.) played in often-empty theaters. Ironically, there is now certainly a lot more inclusive entertainment, but they exist on streaming platforms where they can thrive for the respective demographics (that’s good) without changing a single heart or mind (that’s bad). Movies like Crazy Rich Asians need to succeed not to rebut conventional wisdom about onscreen representation but to convince the filmmakers that such a film can still thrive in theaters.

Five years later, the artistic triumph of Mad Max: Fury Road and the box office success of Pitch Perfect 2 looks not like a “look what we can still do” sign of things to come but rather one last big win before everything went to hell both for society in general and for a vibrant theatrical marketplace. The lie turned out to be that their consumer reception meant anything other than the specific variables of their specific successes. Nor can we take anything positive from the success of comparatively more enlightened blockbusters, as their success is either a testament to their cultural irrelevance or moviegoers’ blinding hypocrisy. Tomorrowland is the future we wanted, but Fury Road is the one we got.