In 2015, director George Miller wowed audiences and critics alike with the return to the post-apocalyptic world of the Mad Max franchise with Mad Max: Fury Road. The film grossed over $400 million worldwide and became a hit, seemingly primed for a new set of Mad Max films with Tom Hardy reprising his role and even a spin-off centred around Charlize Theron’s scene-stealing Furiosa. However, a legal dispute between Miller and Warner Bros. over a bonus he was owed by the studio put talk of potential sequels on hold for a long time. Now, though, Miller has offered a glimmer of hope to fans.
Speaking in an interview with IndieWire, Miller was asked about where the Mad Max sequels stand given the legal dispute and the length of time it’s been, but he’s pretty confident they’ll be able to continue the franchise. “There are two stories, both involving Mad Max, and also a Furiosa story. We’re still solving, we’ve got to play out the Warners thing, it seems to be pretty clear that it’s going to happen.”
As for the legal dispute, Miller elaborated a bit on the current situation and how Warner’s merger with AT&T may have both started and calmed the problem. “It all started because of the chaos at Warner Bros. and not Kevin Tsujihara, it was pre all that. He wasn’t the antagonist, because a lot of people didn’t know what was going on and were not prepared to make a definitive stand; everybody was running around fearful, it seems, through three regimes. It was hard to get anyone’s attention, so we went to litigation. The chaos has stabilized and it’s become extremely positive as the dust seems to have settled after the AT&T merger.”
This gives credence to a rumour a few months ago that a sequel to Fury Road, which has been said to be under the working title The Wasteland, is gearing up for production. Hopefully Miller and Warner will settle their dispute soon and deliver a new Mad Max film as well as Theron’s Furiosa spin-off.
Originally published July 24, 2019. Updated July 26, 2019.
