Mad Max: Fury Road
Mad Max: Fury Road is a 2015 Australian post-apocalyptic action film co-written, co-produced and directed by George Miller, who collaborated with Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris on the screenplay. The fourth in the Mad Max franchise, it was produced by Village Roadshow Pictures and Kennedy Miller Mitchell, and distributed by Roadshow Entertainment in Australia and by Warner Bros. Pictures internationally. The film stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, with Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz, Abbey Lee, and Courtney Eaton. Set in a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland where petrol and water are scarce commodities, it follows Max Rockatansky, who joins forces with Imperator Furiosa against warlord Immortan Joe and his army, leading to a lengthy road battle.
Miller came up with the idea for Mad Max: Fury Road in 1987, but the film spent many years in development hell before pre-production began in 1998. Attempts to shoot the film in the 2000s were delayed numerous times due to the September 11 attacks, the Iraq War, and controversies surrounding star Mel Gibson, leading Miller to recast Gibson's role of Max Rockatansky. Miller decided to pursue the film again in 2007 after the release of his animated comedy film Happy Feet. In 2009, Miller announced that filming would begin in early 2011. Hardy was cast as Max in June 2010, with production planned to begin that November. Principal photography was delayed several more times before it actually began in July 2012. The film wrapped in December 2012, although additional footage was shot in November 2013.
Mad Max: Fury Road premiered in Los Angeles on 7 May 2015, and was released in Australia on 14 May. The film grossed $380.4 million at the worldwide box office, making it the highest-grossing Mad Max film. It was nominated for ten awards at the 88th Academy Awards, winning six awards, and received numerous other accolades, including Best Film from the National Board of Review, eight AACTA Awards from twelve nominations including Best Film and Best Direction and was also named one of the top ten films of 2015 by the American Film Institute. It has also been called one of the greatest action films of all time.
A prequel comic book series was published by Vertigo from May to August 2015. A prequel film, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, was released on 24 May 2024, with Miller returning as writer and director.
Plot
is captured by cult leader Immortan Joe's War Boys and taken to his fortress called the Citadel. Max, a universal donor, is forced to transfuse his blood to Nux, a sick War Boy.Meanwhile, Joe sends his lieutenant Imperator Furiosa in the armoured "War Rig" to trade produce and water for petrol and ammunition with two of his allies, the Bullet Farmer and the People Eater. When Joe realises his five "wives" are fleeing in the Rig, he leads his entire army in pursuit, calling on his allies to help. Nux joins the pursuit with Max strapped to his car, and a chasing battle ensues. After entering enemy territory and fending off a rival gang, Furiosa drives into a dust choked supercell and loses all of her pursuers except Nux, who attempts to sacrifice himself to blow up the Rig. Max frees himself and restrains Nux, and Furiosa destroys Nux's car.
After the sandstorm, Max catches Furiosa repairing the Rig, accompanied by Joe's "wives": Toast, Capable, Cheedo, the Dag, and Angharad, the latter two being pregnant with Joe's children. Max fights and subdues Furiosa, but her engine kill switch prevents him from stealing the Rig. Max begrudgingly agrees to help Furiosa's group escape Joe's wrath. Nux sneaks onto the Rig and attempts to kill Furiosa, but the women overpower him and throw Nux out. Nux rejoins Joe's army when it catches up. Furiosa drives through a canyon controlled by a biker gang, having prearranged to trade petrol for safe passage. The bikers betray her when they spot Joe's army approaching, forcing her to flee.
The bikers detonate the canyon walls to block Joe and pursue the Rig as Max and Furiosa fend them off. Joe drives over the blockade in a monster truck and catches up with the Rig. He sends Nux to carjack the Rig, but Nux stumbles and drops his weapon, to Joe's disgust. While helping Max, Angharad falls off the Rig, and Joe fatally runs her over. Capable finds Nux hiding in the Rig and consoles him. At night, Furiosa and Max drive through a swamp and get stuck in the mud. They slow Joe's forces with landmines, but the Bullet Farmer continues the pursuit in his ATV. Furiosa and Max work together to blind the Bullet Farmer and disable his ATV. Moved by Capable's compassion, Nux joins the group and helps get the Rig moving again.
In the morning, Furiosa tells Max that her group is escaping to a "Green Place", the bountiful land where she grew up before being kidnapped and brought to the Citadel. She spots a Green Place watchtower and identifies herself to the woman at top who summons their matriarchal clan called the Vuvalini. The Vuvalini recognise Furiosa as one of their own but inform a devastated Furiosa that the Green Place was the now-uninhabitable swamp from the previous night and that only seven Vuvalini are left. The group decides to ride across an immense salt flat, hoping to find a new home on the other side. Max goes his own way. After seeing a vision of the child he was unable to save, Max catches up with the group and convinces them to return to the Citadel since they do not know what lies beyond the salt flat, but do know that the now-undefended Citadel has ample water and crops.
Joe intercepts them, and in the ensuing battle, five Vuvalini are killed, Toast is captured, and Furiosa is severely wounded. Joe overtakes the Rig as they approach the canyon. While Max fights Joe's son and enforcer Rictus, Furiosa boards Joe's truck to rescue Toast, who distracts Joe, allowing Furiosa to kill him. The remnants of the group drive Joe's truck back to the Citadel, while Nux sacrifices himself by wrecking the Rig to block the canyon behind them, killing Rictus. Max transfuses his blood to Furiosa, saving her life.
Back at the Citadel, the people rejoice upon learning of Joe's death. As Max's companions are lifted to Joe's cliffside fortress, Max and Furiosa glance at each other before Max disappears into the crowd.
Cast
Production
The film was produced by Doug Mitchell, George Miller, and P. J. Voeten.Development
Mad Max: Fury Road had a lengthy gestation period. In 1987, George Miller had the idea of making a Mad Max instalment that was "almost a continuous chase". He got an idea for the plot in 1998 when he was walking across a street in Los Angeles, and about a year later, while travelling from Los Angeles to Australia, a story in which "violent marauders were fighting, not for oil or for material goods, but for human beings" coalesced. Miller said he worked with five storyboard artists to design the film in storyboard form before writing the screenplay, producing about 3,500 panels, which is almost the same as the number of shots as in the finished film, as he wanted the film to be almost a continuous chase, with relatively little dialogue, and to have the visuals come first. The screenplay was written with Nico Lathouris and cult British comic creator Brendan McCarthy, who also designed many of the new characters and vehicles.The film entered pre-production at 20th Century Fox in the early 2000s and was set to star Mel Gibson, who had portrayed Max Rockatansky in the first three films in the series, with Sigourney Weaver contemplated for the female co-lead which would later become Imperator Furiosa, suggested by Gibson himself after they had worked together in Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously, and Miller agreed on the idea. However, production was indefinitely postponed after the September 11 attacks in 2001 caused "the American dollar against the Australian dollar, and our budget ballooned", as Miller has said in several interviews since the film was released in 2015, or due to security concerns and tightened travel and shipping restrictions during the lead up to the Iraq War caused issues with the proposed Namibian shoot, as had been reported previously. In either event, Miller said he then "had to commit to Happy Feet because we had the digital facility booked to do it", and by the time he got back to work on the Mad Max project four years later, Gibson "had all that turbulence in his life". Both Miller and Gibson himself said the passage of time had made Gibson's age a factor, since the film "wasn't about an old road warrior".
In 2006, Miller said he was thinking about making Fury Road without Gibson. He confirmed his intention to make another Mad Max film in 2007 and stated that he thought Gibson was focused on his own films and was also "too old" to play the part. On 5 March 2009, it was announced that an R-rated animated feature film inspired by Japanese anime, but adapted for Western audiences, was in pre-production that would be taking much of the plot from Fury Road and would not feature Gibson's voice. Miller was also developing an action-adventure tie-in video game based on the fourth film with God of War II designer Cory Barlog. Both projects were expected to take two to two-and-a-half years and, according to Miller, would be released in 2011 or 2012. The animated Fury Road was going to be produced by Dr D Studios, a digital art studio founded in 2008 by Miller and Doug Mitchell.
On 18 May 2009, it was reported that location scouting was underway for Fury Road, which "could go into production later this year". Miller had decided to shoot a live-action film after all, and "already had the various vehicles built for years now – as they were built for the doomed Fury Road shoot". By this time, the project had moved from Fox to Warner Bros. In October, Miller announced that principal photography on Fury Road would commence at Broken Hill, New South Wales in August 2010. That same month, British actor Tom Hardy was in negotiations to take the lead role of Max, and it was also announced that Charlize Theron would play a major role. The finalists for the part of Max were Hardy, Armie Hammer, and Jeremy Renner, with Michael Fassbender, Joel Kinnaman, Heath Ledger, Eric Bana, and Eminem all having been considered at various stages of the film's extended development. Hardy announced he had been cast on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross in June 2010.
In July 2010, Miller announced plans to shoot two Mad Max films back-to-back, entitled Mad Max: Fury Road and Mad Max: Furiosa. Weta Digital was involved with the film when it was scheduled for a 2012 release. The company was to handle visual effects until production was postponed from its November 2010 start date. Specialty physical effects house Wētā Workshop provided conceptual designs, early character look development, prototyping and specialty make-up effects.
After unexpected heavy rains caused wildflowers to grow in the desert around Broken Hill, filming was moved from Broken Hill back to Namibia in November 2011. Other potential locations scouted included the Atacama Desert in Chile, Chott el Djerid in Tunisia, and Azerbaijan.
Miller said he did not feel he had to top the production design of the previous films in the series. Instead, he wanted the design to harken back to the earlier films and reflect the changes of the past 30 years. Colin Gibson, the production designer, said the filmmakers developed an internally consistent history to explain the film's look and justify its use of hot rods. He designed the vehicles in the film, some of which were constructed as early as 2003, and all of which were fully functional. Of the 150 vehicles constructed, only 88 survived to the end of filming, with the others built to facilitate their intended method of destruction. The War Rig, the film's most prominent vehicle, was made by combining a Tatra 815 and Chevrolet Fleetmaster and fusing a Volkswagen Beetle to the hull, among other modifications. The cars were designed with an emphasis on detail and characterisation, and effort was made to show the various characters' attempts to recycle the remains of civilisation and their feelings of guilt and loss.