George Miller has revealed where things currently stand with The Wasteland, the planned next film in the Mad Max saga.
Itās taken almost a decade to get Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga into the world, with the film finally emerging nine years after the acclaimed launch of Mad Max: Fury Road.
Reviews for the new movie have been good and director George Miller has been out and about, promoting the latest installment of his decades-long series. You can catch our review here.
While on the HappySadConfused podcast, Miller talked about The Wasteland, his next planned project in the Mad Max series. George Miller has talked up the chances of making another Mad Max film for some time now, and has previously discussed ideas for The Wasteland which would see the title character of Max Rockatansky returning to the fore.
Presumably, Tom Hardy would be invited to return to the role that he played in Fury Road and Miller has previously said that the film would serve as a sort of prequel to that film, explaining how Rockatansky came to be a prisoner of Immortan Joeās and set up the events of that film.
Miller dropped a few more nuggets of information though, not least a hint about the filmās narrative framework and tone, saying, “I’d say that it certainly has a lot of action in it, but it is also a saga. It’s a year-long story. That suggests that the film will adopt a style that hews closer to Furiosa than the compressed timeline of Fury Road.
āFury Road happened over three days and two nights,ā explains Miller. āYou could almost say that the first act, some part of the second act, and the third act mostly play in real time. Quite a different kettle of fish than Furiosa.ā
Will it happen?
āI’m still figuring out what to do with [The Wasteland]. I’m just waiting to see the reception on Furiosa. If it all lines up, then we’ll go ahead with it.”
Ah. Here might be the problem. Box office for Furiosa hasnāt exactly set the world alight as of yet so a future Mad Max film could face an uphill battle. Still, Miller has come out on top before in difficult situations and he also owns the rights to the characters. Even if Warner Bros elected not to back another film, weād happily take a stripped-back take that ran closer to the 1979 original and could be independently-financed (and we wager we wouldnāt be alone).
Weāll bring you more on Millerās next move as we hear it, but in the meantime why not check out our piece on Furiosa and the makings of a great prequel right here.