You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that after the box office failure of “Furiosa,” it would take a damn-near miracle for George Miller, 80, to make another ‘Mad Max’ movie.
With that said, Miller is telling Vulture that “if for whatever reason the planets align,” he would make another ‘Max’ movie, but his next film project is not ‘Max.’
“We’ve got another script. But having been doing this long enough where I’m habituated to storytelling, I find myself with way too many stories — not only in my head, but in the form of screenplays or at least very detailed notes that are within reach of screenplays […]”
Miller added, “So, there’s lots of stories. Indeed, one of them is a Mad Max. It is not something I would do next, because there’s two things I’m keen to do next. But if for whatever reason the planets align, you can never tell. Too often, you’re lining up to do a movie and then something happens. Some things fall into place and some don’t, so all I can say is we’ll see.”
Who are we kidding here? If “Furiosa” were a success, Miller, who turns 80 on Monday, would have gone straight to making his long-gestating “Mad Max: Wasteland” starring Tom Hardy. Sadly, that was not the case, the film only earned $68M domestically.
It doesn’t help that Hardy has expressed doubts about returning for ‘Wasteland.’“I don’t think that’s happening,” he told Forbes in June. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that ‘Wasteland’ is the next ‘Max’ film Miller is referring to in the this interview, but he had previously hinted, just last year, before “Furiosa” bombed, that it could be coming next. Plans have clearly changed.
The main obstacle for Miller to make another ‘Max’ would be money. Does Warner Bros actually want to invest $170M on another instalment? “Furiosa” was very well reviewed, and seems to have found a larger audience on streaming, but the large-scale expectations of it coming after “Fury Road” could not be met.