George Miller Interview Sheds Some Light on the Mad Max Sequels

I am so glad that Mad Max: Fury Road is out for home viewing now. I bought it last week and I’ve watched it 3 times since then, it feels so nice to have it once again safely nestled in the black matter of my brain. During a Rocket League session a few days ago I went for the ever-satisfying kick-off shot on goal, and the timing and position of the other cars meant that as I came in and made the (successful) shot, my car exploded. Without even thinking I threw my arms skyward and yelled ‘WITNESS ME’. If only there had been a can of silver spray paint close to hand. Anyway, there’s already a great deal of hype surrounding the planned sequels. Two have been confirmed for definite but Tom Hardy has reportedly signed on for 3, so we could be getting regular doses of full metal carnage right up until the end of the decade.

In the mean time, news has been trickling in about what these sequels might entail, and an interview with George Miller over at Digital Spy seems to have given us a bit more to go on. The main thing, sadly, seems to be that Imperator Furiosa, or at least Charlize Theron’s rendition of her, will not be making an appearance in Mad Max: The Wasteland (working title). Miller explains that there is a written ‘interaction’ with her character, but couldn’t provide any detail as to which film it was in or any wider context, because it’s all still being written. Clearly though there is more story surrounding the character yet to be told, at an earlier stage in the interview Miller is asked how she lost her arm, to which he responds ‘it’s a long story’.

In a separate interview earlier in the year, Miller did clarify that Mad Max: Furiosa is still a thing, just that Wasteland is going to be made first. Before Fury Road came out, there were some reports that it was being shot back-to-back with Furiosa, but I imagine that they ended up needing the entire budget and shooting schedule for the former, given how ridiculous it is. Said ridiculousness seems to have also played into Miller’s more immediate plans, as he states later on in the interview that he hopes his next film will be smaller, featuring no stunts or major effects, which more or less puts the kibosh on the rumours that he would be helming Man of Steel 2. Those rumours are further kiboshed when he says that he’s not involved, but that he had been attached to a Justice League film in 2009. Bonus points for the way he carefully sidesteps the question when asked whether or not he liked the first Man of Steel.