Furiosa’s failure at the box office means there probably won’t be any more Mad Max movies – and if that’s the case, I’ll be heartbroken. George Miller’s post-apocalyptic franchise has been a staple of action cinema since the ‘70s. 1979’s Mad Max, set in a dystopian near-future, is an ultraviolent masterpiece with uncompromising brutality and a bleakly satirical view of society and human nature. It was a landmark in independent filmmaking and, according to Guinness World Records, the most profitable film ever made (until it was dethroned by Blair Witch in 1999). It got the franchise off to a terrific start.

Then, Miller’s first sequel, 1981’s Mad Max 2 – released in the U.S. as The Road Warrior – upped the ante even more with riveting car chases, spaghetti western vibes, and a breathtaking vision of a lawless post-apocalyptic wasteland. The 1985 threequel, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, doesn’t quite reach the masterpiece level of its two predecessors, but it introduced many iconic concepts to the pop-cultural consciousness (not least the Thunderdome itself). Three decades later, in 2015, Miller updated the mythos for a modern audience with Mad Max: Fury Road, hailed as one of the greatest action movies ever made.

The overwhelming success of Fury Road – universal acclaim, strong box office performance, and 10 Oscar nominations – seemed to set up a second life for the franchise as a modern-day cinematic universe. Miller followed it up with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a prequel filling in the grisly backstory of Charlize Theron’s Fury Road protagonist. But, although Furiosa received the same widespread critical praise as Fury Road, it didn’t enjoy the same box office success. This could mean that one of my favorite franchises is about to meet a swift end, and that breaks my heart.

The Mad Max franchise is a staple of action cinema and, creatively, it keeps going from strength to strength. But the box office failure of Furiosa means that Warner Bros. probably won’t take a chance on any more Mad Max films. In a world where Moana 2 and a live-action remake of Moana are concurrently in development, it would be a travesty for Hollywood to abandon one of the only I.P.s that actually innovates and evolves and has more stories to tell.

Furiosa's Box Office Failure Means There Probably Won't Be Any More Mad Max Movies

Furiosa barely made back its production budget at the global box office

Furiosa grossed just $172,714,623 at the worldwide box office (via The Numbers) against its whopping budget of $168 million. It barely scraped past its production budget and didn’t come close to making back the marketing budget. The usual 2.5x rule of thumb would suggest that Furiosa needed to gross $420 million to turn a profit. There are a number of reasons for Furiosa’s box office underperformance. It arrived almost a decade after the movie it spun off, it had to compete with Garfield, and it wasn’t in theaters for long enough to allow good word-of-mouth to spread.

Furiosa Was One Of The Best Big Screen Experiences Of The Year

Furiosa demanded to be seen on a big screen

Whereas a movie like Despicable Me 4 or Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is pretty much the same experience on a TV at home as it is in a theater, Furiosa made full use of the theatrical facilities for a truly enriched viewing experience. The roar of the engines and the rat-a-tat of the shootouts blared out of the speakers. The giant screen brought every car crash and brutal beatdown a little close to home.

Furiosa needed to be seen on a big screen to fully appreciate the way Miller manipulates his audience’s senses. So far this year, I’ve seen a couple of dozen new movies at a theater – ranging from the highs of Inside Out 2 to the lows of Argylle – and Furiosa stands out as one of the few that genuinely demanded to be seen on a big screen. Furiosa was an immersive cinematic experience on par with Dune: Part Two, and it deserved to achieve the same success.

Mad Max May Be Too Niche & Weird To Cut It As A Modern Blockbuster Franchise

The Mad Max series has never really been a huge box office draw

The original Mad Max trilogy was popular in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, but it never matched the blockbuster success of a Jaws or a Star Wars. The box office underperformance of Furiosa is disappointing, for sure – especially when something as inane as Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire can cross the half-billion mark in the same moviegoing season – but it’s not exactly a surprise. I think the problem has always been that Mad Max doesn’t have the mainstream appeal of something like E.T. or Back to the Future; it’s more of a niche thing.

Miller’s vision of the post-apocalyptic future is distinctive and perfectly executed and beautifully idiosyncratic, but it’s a little too bleak and twisted to reach a wide audience that enjoys simple pleasures like King Kong wearing an Iron Man glove. Mad Max is too weird to have broad appeal. One of the biggest moments of triumph in Furiosa is when the titular heroine rips off her own arm – that definitely wouldn’t fly in a Spider-Man movie.

The people who love Mad Max, such as myself, really love it. But that’s not a particularly large group. And there aren’t enough of us for Mad Max to be financially viable as a global blockbuster franchise in this day and age. Ironically, the Mad Max saga has become the victim of a bleak cinematic wasteland in which only a lucky few franchises get to survive.

A project titled Mad Max: The Wasteland has been in development for a while, but it seems unlikely to come to fruition now.

Furiosa Showed There Are Plenty More Mad Max Stories To Tell

There's so much untapped potential in this universe

Hollywood’s current franchise-first mindset has led to some very pointless movies and TV shows being made. Lucasfilm made a whole movie about Han Solo’s “origin story,” despite the fact that the original Star Wars trilogy already functioned as his origin story (showing how a selfish pirate became a selfless hero). Pixar is working on Toy Story 5 after supposedly ending the series with Toy Story 4 (after supposedly ending the series with Toy Story 3).

In a world where those movies are being made, it’s a travesty that the Mad Max franchise might be dead, because this is a universe that actually has more stories to tell. Furiosa delivers all the car stunts that Fury Road fans were expecting, but it’s a totally different movie. It’s an episodic revenge epic that unfolds in distinctive chapters and spans decades. It introduced fascinating new characters, like Dementus and Praetorian Jack, and explored new facets of this world. Miller has just scratched the surface of all the Mad Max stories there are, and it might already be over.