Despite a refreshingly unconventional approach to the summer blockbuster archetype and a flame-spouting guitarist in the form of the Doof Warrior, Mad Max: Fury Road failed to reach the dizzying heights of other tentpole films released during the summer months – namely Age of Ultron, Pixar’s Inside Out and Jurassic World. Even still, this hasn’t dampened our interest to return to the Wasteland, nor has it stopped director George Miller from pushing on with plans for sequels.
Indeed, thanks to an appearance on BBC’s Top Gear series, Miller has confirmed that two more scripts are already complete.
[zerg]But before you start scouring the Internet for any semblance of plot, it’s worth remembering the long and winding road that Mad Max: Fury Road walked in its journey to a theaterical release, and even though Fury Road is unquestionably the highest-rated blockbuster of 2015 thus far, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee that Miller and Co. will be rewarded with a sequel.
Whatever the outcome, here’s what Miller had to share about the arduous filmmaking behind the adorned feature, and how the creative team is hosting an open dialogue with Warner Bros. about which of the two completed scripts to tackle first.
“This film [Fury Road] was green lit three times and fell over three times over a decade. We went to shoot with Mel Gibson back in 2001, but then 9/11 happened, and the American dollar collapsed against the Australian dollar close to 30 per cent, so we lost that amount of budget overnight….We were then rained out of Australia. The desert rained for the first time in 15 years, and we ended up in South West Africa, Namibia.
But in this process, we had dug down deep into the backstory, not only of the characters, but of every vehicle. How the steering wheels became religious artifacts and things like that. So we ended up with two scripts, without really trying. We’re talking to the studio [Warner Bros] about it as we speak, but which one of the two stories will happen next, I’m not so sure.”
Mad Max: The Wasteland is the tentative title that has been given to the direct follow-up to this year’s white-knuckle ride, and we understand that Tom Hardy’s contract will ensure he remains in the fray for at least three more movies. Whether Charlize Theron’s Furiosa – the true lead in Miller’s summer showdown – returns is another question entirely.
While George Miller and Warner iron out the future of Mad Max, you can check out our own review of the Fury Road Blu-Ray.
