George Miller has been discussing the proposed sequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, and has revealed that he has not one, but two scripts to choose between when it comes to plotting out his next dystopian adventure. That’s largely thanks to the tortuous process behind the recent film, which took the best part of a decade to get made.
"This film was green lit three times and fell over three times over a decade," Miller told Top Gear. "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%, 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 artefacts 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."
Whichever way the studio wavers, what we do know is that the follow-up will be titled Mad Max: Wasteland and will likely be another full-blown assault on the senses. In the meantime, Miller is planning something a little more low-key for his next feature. "I want to do a small film without special effects before I do any of that," said the director. "We shot Fury Road for eight months… that’s a lot."
