[Update: George Miller is talking about the reason for the
delay.]
Things are not looking good for Mad Max: Fury Road. George
Miller’s fourth Mad Max adventure has hit another road block – meaning that the
film won’t start filming until 2012, at the earliest.
It’s the second delay for the film (which is scheduled for
back-to-back shooting with a sequel, Furiosa) in recent months and there are
reports that the reboot might even be scrapped – as the price of the Australian
dollar rises.The action adventure film, which is currently set to star Tom
Hardy and Charlize Theron, was postponed in July because an unexpected amount
of rain left proposed shooting locations too green for George Miller’s vision
of a post apocalyptic world. Pre-production has already started on the film
with millions spent – some rumors even state that some stunt work has already
been filmed.
However, the crew have now been told that filming will not
begin until February 2012.
The latest delay doesn’t bode well for Mad Max: Fury Road,
which was originally set to shoot almost a decade ago – with original star Mel
Gibson. Back then, troubles in the Middle East led to the film getting canned,
and although no reason is given for this latest delay, the hopes of seeing Mad
Max: Fury Road are starting to look bleak once again – as shooting has now been
pushed-back more than a year.
This news is deja vu for Miller, who was well into
pre-production on Justice League when the plugged was pulled due to budgetary
reasons. It remains to be seen if Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron will even be in
the film when (and if) Max returns to the screen. Thanks to Inception, Hardy’s
star is on the rise, and Theron is constantly busy, thanks to her Monster Oscar
win – so if, one year from now, Miller does get Mad Max on the road again – it
might be with an entirely different cast.
The news comes as Mad Max’s studio, Warner Bros., is
currently locked in a very public dispute with the Australian actors union over
casting for The Hobbit. Any conspiracy theorist will likely come to the
conclusion that the studio has delayed plans to shoot Mad Max in Australia as a
way of getting back at the union as a result of their boycott of Peter Jackson’s
film. Though this is purely speculation. The incident may even lead to a
European The Hobbit shoot – not New Zealand where The Lord of The Rings trilogy
was filmed.
UPDATE: Apparently weather conditions (not money) are to
blame for the latest delay with Fury Road. As George Miller told the Sydney
Morning Herald:
”Unfortunately for Mad Max, what was wasteland is now this
wonderful flower garden…We’ve looked at every single nook and cranny in
Australia for these specific locations…That’s why Broken Hill has become such a
base for outback films: you’ve got the infrastructure of the city itself and
the treeless plains beyond…Obviously if we go to Namibia or Morocco or Chile
it’s a different kettle of fish, but we want to shoot it here…Governments are
working incredibly hard to bring these productions in…They’re so sought after
around the world because they infuse a massive amount of foreign cash into the
economy and create a lot of jobs…Everyone’s competing for that and right now
it’s no more expensive to shoot in America than it is in Australia.”
As a result of the delay, long time Mad Max fans might see a
grain of hope that Mel Gibson could return to his iconic role of Max. The actor
has had many well-publicized personal problems in recent years and a return to
Mad Max would probably make more sense than the rumored Lethal Weapon 5 or
Maverick 2. It remains to be seen if Gibson would even be interested, or if
Miller would retool the script for an older (and madder?) Max – but it might be
the only way of getting Max back into his Interceptor for another adventure
filled with carnage and mayhem. It looks like we might need another hero after
all.
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