Anya Taylor-Joy's Sci-Fi Thriller With 88% Audience Score Is Finally Getting the Love It Deserves

2026 has been a benchmark year for Anya Taylor-Joy, but one of her most surprising flops from the last few years is finally finding redemption on streaming. For her first project of the year, Taylor-Joy reprised her role as Princess Peach in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which was the first feature film of 2026 to reach $1 billion at the global box office. She then returned to Apple TV to star in the new crime thriller series, Lucky, which is still among the most-watched shows of 2026. She previously starred in The Gorge for Apple TV with Miles Teller, which has vastly overstayed its welcome as it continues to dominate watchlists. Taylor-Joy will finish the year by starring as Alia Atreides in Dune: Part Three, which opens in theaters on December 18, the same day as Avengers: Doomsday.

The Gorge helped Anya Taylor-Joy establish herself as one of the queens of sci-fi, but the year before the film hit Apple TV, she starred in one of the most puzzling flops of her career. We're talking, of course, about Furiosa, the Mad Max prequel film co-starring tenured Marvel veteran Chris Hemsworth. Furiosa debuted to widespread acclaim from both critics (90%) and audiences (88%), and in the months leading up to the film, many expected it to be one of the biggest smash hits of the summer. However, it struggled immensely under the weight of its $168 million budget, just narrowly managing to earn this back by grossing $174 million at the box office. The only saving grace is that it's been one of the most-watched movies on HBO Max on and off for the last year.

Is George Miller Making Another Mad Max Movie?

George Miller has written the script for another Mad Max movie, but it's unclear at this time if it will ever be made into a feature film. After the failure of Furiosa a few years ago, Warner Bros. reportedly passed on the script, which isn't all that surprising, as the studio likely isn't that eager to jump back into the world that just lost over $100 million. If another studio is willing to take a chance on Miller's Mad Max script, it could get a green light to move forward, but Miller would likely need to make it on a more modest budget.