Following Mad Max: Fury Road crushing the box office with a resounding global $374.7 million, Warner Bros. was not surprisingly quick to announce that a sequel was on its way. It’s a normal reaction to a giant success such as Fury Road, but it’s going to get better as director George Miller has confirmed that there will not be one, but two Mad Max sequels in the near future. More on the story below.
Speaking to Top Gear, Miller addressed the future of the franchise, and how it took a few stumbles due to tragic events, a financial crisis, and weather disasters…
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 southwest 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.
Now the two stories he is speaking of may be Mad Max: Furiosa and Mad Max: The Wasteland. Miller confirmed the latter title earlier this year. But it isn’t clear if these are two separate films or if they are one in the same. If they are separate, then it should be interesting to see which title he chooses to go with, especially if it is the former. With the kind of reaction Charlize Theron has been getting for her performance as Imperator Furiosa, one would hope that she would appear again or maybe get her own film. But that is for another report.
Tom Hardy, who played the title character in Fury Road, is reportedly signed on for three more Mad Max films, making it less likely for him to replace Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in the X-Men film franchise.
But before Miller jumps back into the world of Mad Max, the director said he would like to do something small and less frenetic. We’ll keep you posted on any developments as they come in.
[Source: Top Gear]
So funny how Fury Road crushes at the box office with a $375M worldwide gross and WB immediately green lights a sequel but Pacific Rim disappoints with $411M worldwide and Universal casts uncertainty about the possibility of future sequels. Don’t know cost of marketing but with reported production costs of $150M for Fury Road and $190M for Pacific Rim, the difference is only about $3M.
Comment by PAUL — October 6, 2015 @ 11:00 am