It seems Hollywood, specifically Warner Brothers, continues to abuse its stars and fans. The success of Mad Max: Fury Road would have made everyone happy. It grossed more than $370 million in global theaters and was primed for a sequel that would have had its fans lined up for miles around the world. Naturally, the greedmeisters at Warner brothers decided to financially asphyxiate itself by squabbling over a $7 million payout to director George Miller.
The numbers speak to the stupidity of Warner Brothers, who vow to fight to the bitter end in court after Miller attempted to negotiate the payment for more than a year. There is a dispute about the bonus, which was to have been given to Miller if the production costs totaled less than $150 million after agreed deductions. Warner Brothers said no to the payout, so here we are.
The math is actually pretty simple. Take $7 million and divide it by the global sales of roughly $370 million. That comes out to 1.89% of the gross sales, leaving WB with 98.11% to pay its expenses. After deducting $150 million for production costs, it is left with roughly $200 million. They could make the sequel for the same production cost as the first movie and have $50 million left over.
Mad Max: Fury Road took more than a decade to write and develop according to Miller, and an additional 3 years to produce. It seems that the writing of the sequel was moving forward during the negotiations, but now has likely come to a screeching halt. Sequels often never measure up to fans’ expectations, and with this delay it seems more likely that will be the case for Mad Max. Instead of everybody wining, everybody loses. Even if WB ends up winning in court they pocket a paltry $7 million. This only makes sense to the suits at Warner Brothers.
Court battles usually end ugly when it comes to money matters, so whether WB or Miller wins it is possible the two will not be on speaking terms. That translates into no sequel at all. Word is that Miller says he has enough material for two sequels, but moving forward into the production stage could take another year — or longer. Until then, fans are going to have to choose to either be patient or forget about any sequel or prequel. What is lost on many of the Hollywood execs is that actors will not be sitting around waiting for the lawsuit to be settled. They will be taking new acting roles and leaving Mad Max behind. The longer it takes to for the courts to settle things, the further behind the actors will put the project.
Tom Hardy has reportedly signed on for 3 Mad Max movies, saying that he doesn’t know when that will happen. George Miller seems to be somewhat of a difficult person to work with though, as other than his dispute with WB he had a falling out with Hardy, and back in January of 2016 there are rumors he would not be directing any sequel or prequel for the Mad Max franchise. Though WB seems to carry the burden of the blame here, it might do Miller well to live in the now and let WB keep the money. Like WB he will very likely still come out ahead. But both are products of Hollywood, and know its inner workings, which apparently are more about their wallets than the demands of their fan base.
Maybe they both deserve to lose.
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