George Miller Says Script For 'Mad Max: Fury Road' Sequel Already Written
At least viewed from afar, since most of The Playlist team didn't go down for the event, it would seem that "Mad Max: Fury Road" walked away from this year's Comic-Con with the best buzz of any film that was presented. The trailer certainly got folks talking and amped up the excitement for what look likes a white knuckle action flick that is going re-invigorate the franchise that has been largely dormant for decades. Clearly, hitting San Diego a year out from release with a major presentation about the movie, Warner Bros. has big hopes for this movie to spawn even more, and it looks like the foundation has not only be laid, they are ready to go should 'Fury Road' prove to be a hit.
During the press conference for the film, director George Miller revealed the world of 'Fury Road' is already expanding. “In order to tell this story, we came up with two others. We’ve written the screenplay of one and the novelization of another, but it’s a very rough novel,” Miller said. “We kept working on them while we were working on other things.” It's a fascinating revelation, for myriad reasons, and one has to ask: is one of those screenplays "Mad Max: Furiosa"? This new 'Mad Max' was originally meant to be two features that would shoot back to back, but obviously that plan changed. Secondly, Charlize Theron and Miller have already said there was no 'Fury Road' screenplay; instead they relied upon extremely detailed storyboards (a move that is said to have made studio brass extremely nervous).
This is going back about four years (this movie has been in the works for a long time), but at the time it was rumored that Miller was going to head into production on two films: "Mad Max: Fury Road" and another titled, "Mad Max: Furiosa." The idea was that Tom Hardy's character would lead one movie, and Charlize Theron's the other, with both films shooting at the same time, and released not long after each other, "The Matrix" sequels-style. How real those plans were isn't known, but 'Fury Road' wound up going into production on its own—perhaps WB didn't want to put the cart in front of the horse.
But we'd wager that other script is indeed 'Furiosa' and it's a canny plan on behalf of WB. Instead of risking the cost of two movies, make one, and ensure it'll be a hit, and then have everything you need for the sequel ready to go, so you can knock it out fast. And if Miller's movie lives up to the hype it's generated this far, WB will definitely have a new series on their hands.
Tom Hardy revealed in an Esquire interview this week that he has plans to be a part of at least three more Mad Max films. Yep, three. "Everything's based on figures and how things are perceived," he said. "Inevitably it's a business." Okay, yes, so we'll see what happens, but he added that Fury Road is "fucking unbelievable." Promising! (Hardy plays the titular Max Rockatansky.) Great news if you love sand and explosions. Also great news just in general.
Blasting out across the media landscape like an atonal chord blasted from the flamethrowing guitar dude in "Mad Max: Fury Road," the buzz around George Miller's return to the desolate landscape of the future has been electric. And already, folks are wondering what's next. We've long known the director already has two more stories mapped out, and while he hasn't spilled any plot details, he has teased that he's got a title for what would be the "Mad Max: Fury Road" followup.
“We’ve got one screenplay and a novella. It happened because with the delays [on 'Fury Road'], and writing all the backstories, they just expanded,” Miller explained on The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith about the genesis of the followup films. And while he hasn't gotten around to storyboarding them — give the guy a break, he only finished 'Fury Road' a few of weeks before it opened around the world — he says the next entry is titled, “Mad Max: The Wasteland.” So ruminate on what that might mean for the next adventures of Max Rockatansky. However, in an alternate universe, 'Fury Road' would've already been released with a different actor in the lead role.
Director George Miller hasn’t been shy about the fact that he’s planned more than one new Mad Max movie, previously confirming that he’s written the follow-ups. Speaking on The Q&A Podcast with Jeff Goldsmith (via The Playlist), Miller went one further and confirmed that the Fury Road follow-up is titled Mad Max: The Wasteland:
“We’ve got one screenplay and a novella. It happened because with the delays [on Fury Road] and writing all the backstories, they just expanded.”
