It's no secret the given the excruciatingly long pre-production period that FURY ROAD dwelled in, George Miller had time to write up more Mad Max story than he knew what to do with. Miller has stated that he has two sequels in mind and with Tom Hardy signed up for two more flicks, moving forward seems like a no-brainer…except that George Miller isn't ready. Speaking with Top Gear, the filmmaker spoke about the process of filming a MAD MAX flick and what he'd like to work on first.
[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 about it as we speak, but which one of the two stories will happen next, I’m not so sure. I want to do a small film without special effects before I do any of that, just to do it quickly. We shot FURY ROAD for eight months… that’s a lot. Every day in the heat and the dust, doing these stunts, it’s very wearing. We’ve got two more planned, but at some point in the future.
I actually don't mind some space between FURY ROAD and whatever comes next, as I'd like Miller to create something that is (almost) totally different than what we experienced with this year's MAD MAX entry. He designed FURY ROAD as a 2-hour chase film, so let's see what other kinds of shenanigans Max can get up to elsewhere in the wasteland. Either way, it sounds like fans will get what they want, even if we have to wait a little while.