Mad Max: Fury Road roars into theaters this weekend amid growing expectations and a stellar 99% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.  Both Mad Max (which stars Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy) and the acapella comedy sequel Pitch Perfect 2 are expected to top Avengers: Age of Ultron, which is facing much stiffer competition than Furious 7 did in April.  Mad Max, which blew Comic-Con audiences away last summer with its impressive visuals and stunt work, has been building momentum thanks to highly kinetic trailers that show off its epic scope, which should translate into box office success in pricey big screen theaters, and perhaps one of the better bows in recent years for an R-rated action film, though most analysts are still picking Pitch Perfect 2 to win the weekend.

There’s not a ton of Fury Road merchandise available, so it is good news that next week on May 19 Titan Books will release The Art of Mad Max Fury Road ($39.95), a 176-page, 12"x11" hardcover filled with production stills, concept art, and behind-the-scenes photos of George Miller’s new Road Warrior saga.  Miller’s original Road Warrior/Mad Max films were never huge box office hits back in the 1980s (Beyond Thunderdome earned $36.2 million in 1985, which is only about $83 million today, less than what a Taken sequel earns), but they were cult hits with a devoted following.

If Fury Road, the fourth film in the series and the first in 30 years, can inspire that same level of devotion, there could be lots more Mad Max merchandise in the future, but for now on the print side, it’s Titan’s art book and a series of prequel comics from DC’s Vertigo tracing the lives of key Fury Road characters and the various twists and turns that brought them together for the events chronicled in the film as well as an art book, Mad Max: Fury Road: Inspired Artists (see "Vertigo Plans 'Mad Max: Fury Road' Titles").