Whenever a story about Mad Max: Fury Road, it always feel like I need to remind myself that yes, this movie is actually being made. This is because of two reasons: Firstly, it’s been nearly 30 years since the last film, and secondly, this movie feels like it has been in development for just as long. That may be quite the exaggeration, but for a film that started shooting in 2011 (with the script written back in 2000 already) and is only being released in 2015, it feels kind of apt.
One of the reasons for the delay has reportedly been numerous reshoots that the film has needed. Except, those were apparently not reshoots at all.
Chatting to the Sydney Morning Herald, Miller elaborated on the “reshoots”claim, backing up what star Tom Hardy – who plays the titular Max Rockatansky, the character once made famous by Mel Gibson in the first 3 movies in the 1980’s – said not too long ago about the additional scenes shot.
“There are no re-shoots at all. Other than some brief augmenting shots, filming has been confined to scenes that bookend the movie. Our film, luckily after a ridiculous amount of work, is testing extremely well. We’re very happy. There has been a lot of doubt about it, [people saying] ‘it took so long’, but Warners have delayed it until 2015 to go into the top weekend of the year.”
While many – myself included – questioned that “top weekend” as being such a great idea, seeing as the inevitable box office behemoth, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, opens just two weeks before Mad Max: Fury Road‘s May 15, 2015 release date, Warner Bros apparently had a method to their madness. It was either move it to one of the prime movie release time slots in 2015, or keep it in 2014 where it will be competing for attention with the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Stuck between a rock and a Hulk place it would seem.
One that will be reassuring to know that they will be able to hold some of their ground, is that the film is testing really well with audiences currently. I’m not quite sure how that that testing would have gone though, if Gibson, who currently has a bit of a persona non grata status after just one too many vitriolic rants, were to be included in the fourquel. That was actually what had been rumoured would indeed happen, with Gibson popping up in a cameo role, but you shouldn’t believe all the rumours you read.
”It would have been nice somehow but, no, it’s not true.”
Nice, but also pretty jarring. Hardy is playing a young version of Gibson’s character, with the events of Fury Road – described by Miller as “a pretty epic chase across the wasteland” – said to take place between Mad Max 1 & 2. Having both a younger and older version of the same person on screen would have been pretty distracting. What would not be distracting though, but just pretty cool, would be seeing Max’s original car, the Interceptor. And it sounds like that’s going to happen.
”Without giving too much away, there is one that appears.”
You can read the rest of the interview with Miller over here, where he also discussed why he chose certain locations for certain stunts (”it’s isolated and you can drive big vehicles very fast and crash them”) and just how un-gruelling the shoot was (“One of our top guys… just pulled a tendon in his biceps; that’s one of the worst injuries we’ve had.”)
Mad Max: Fury Road also stars Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz and Nathan Jones and opens on May 15, 2015.
Mad Max is caught up with a group of people fleeing across the Wasteland in a War Rig driven by the Imperator Furiosa. This movie is an account of the Road War which follows. It is based on the Word Burgers of the History Men and eyewitness accounts of those who survived.
Last Updated: December 4, 2013
Alien Emperor Trevor
December 4, 2013 at 10:02
What is the problem with them releasing it 2 weeks after Avengers? Do many people in the world only watch one movie a year? I know some people who watch more than one movie a week, madness! Call me crazy but I’ll watch both, even though they’re right after each other because that’s the way I roll when they release movies I want to see at the same time.
They seriously need to get over their opening weekend circle jerk. How does it make any real difference if a movie makes $200 mil in a month if the first $150 mil was on the first weekend, as opposed to $50 mil every week?
Kervyn Cloete
December 4, 2013 at 11:20
Most movies make the bulk of their money on the opening weekend, with a 70% or more drop off in profits from Week 1 to 2 being perfectly normal.The success of the opening weekend usually also determines the overall box office success, as a film making a big early splash generates more buzz and thus gets more people interested in seeing it (only very rarely will movie have a weak opening and then go on to make money).
This means that you really want as little competition as possible in the early stages, and unfortunately you can almost be damn sure that two weeks after it’s released, Avengers will still be pulling in huge amounts of viewers who would otherwise perhaps have been interested in Mad Max.
I will definitely see both on opening, and you may too, but the amount of people like us – the film geeks, fanboys, etc – generally pale in comparison when it comes to the general audience that films like these need to pull to make a success of themselves.
Alien Emperor Trevor
December 4, 2013 at 11:41
I know, it’s just so frustrating.