Today’s the day “Longlegs” ($67.5M) officially surpassed “Furiosa” ($67.4M) at the domestic box-office. How wild is that? One was made for “under $10M” and the other was made for $168M. Almost no one predicted this would happen.
As far as “Longlegs” goes, it was Neon’s incredible marketing, filled with cryptic teasers and selective reviews being published. Horror also sells these days, and if there’s a well-reviewed film in the genre then odds are that an audience will show up for it in theaters.
Whereas, “Furiosa,” despite the good reviews, just didn’t connect with audiences. Yes, it was a ‘Mad Max’ movie, but Max was nowhere to be found. I gather if George Miller had decided to make “Mad Max: Wasteland” instead of “Furiosa” then the former would have probably made more money.