During the noisy, gasoline stenched build up to the release of "Mad Max: Fury Road" earlier this year, one curious tidbit that surfaced was that George Miller had an alternate, black-and-white cut of the film in the can. And even more, that it would be included in the home video release.
"We spent a lot of time in DI (digital intermediate), and we had a very fine colorist, Eric Whipp. One thing I’ve noticed is that the default position for everyone is to de-saturate post-apocalyptic movies. There’s only two ways to go, make them black and white — the best version of this movie is black and white, but people reserve that for art movies now. The other version is to really go all-out on the color," Miller told Slashfilm in May. "The usual teal and orange thing? That’s all the colors we had to work with. The desert’s orange and the sky is teal, and we either could de-saturate it, or crank it up, to differentiate the movie. Plus, it can get really tiring watching this dull, de-saturated color, unless you go all the way out and make it black and white."
The site added that Miller had told them he "demanded" Warner Bros. release the black and white cut on the Blu-ray, with an option to just hear the isolated score as the only sound in the film. However, it would appear those plans have been scuttled.
READ MORE: Charlez Theron Suggests She Might Not Return As Furiosa After ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
Details of the U.K. release of "Mad Max: Fury Road" have been revealed on Blu-ray.com, and while there are a lot of featurettes and some deleted scenes, there is no mention of an alternate cut. Here’s what you’ll find on the disc:
Maximum Fury: Filming Fury Road Featurette
Mad Max: Fury on Four Wheels Featurette
The Road Warriors: Max and Furiosa Featurette
The Tools of the Wasteland Featurette
The Five Wives: So Shiny, So Chrome Featurette
Fury Road: Crash & Smash Featurette
Deleted Scenes
And if you’re thinking that this black and white cut is a mythological wonder, it indeed does exist, with Will McRabb tweeting last month he had seen it screened on the Warner Bros. lot. So, maybe it’s a hidden Easter Egg on the disc? Or perhaps the studio is banking it for an eventual double dip home video release when an inevitable sequel is made. And in the most unlikely scenario, maybe the U.S. release will be version that includes the cut. But for now, it seems it also exists in the hands of WB and George Miller. Anyway, imagine what it might be like with this black and white version of the trailer made by Renn Brown.
I was lucky enough to see GEORGE MILLER’S B&W version of #FuryRoad at WB’s this morning.
John Ford on Acid Historic! pic.twitter.com/PVOoFA1TKW
— WILL McCRABB (@mccrabb_will) June 3, 2015
Good point Mookie, good point. 🙂
The problem, Mookie, is that converting to Black and White is just as complex and intricate a process as any colour correction process. You need to filter specific colours in just the right way to get the right shade of white, black or grey, to play with the contrast and brightness of not only the whole frame but specific areas of the image as well. Different colours react differently to filtering. Generic conversions you\’d get from "Lowering the saturation setting on your tv" can easily result in flat, bland, or confusing messes, things that visual storytellers, filmmakers, and photographers would cringe and wince at.
Fury Road is a masterpiece of precision planning and execution. Miller\’s B&W cut would be STREETS ahead of anything your simple tv saturation slider could muster up.
What Daniel said….
Just to second, well done Daniel.
well you probably watch movies on your shitty ipad or laptop screen, so yeah, you can just throw a black and white filter on if your someone who doesn\’t give a shit about seeing it done right
What a shame its not going to be released. A b&w version would have been sweet.
I guess this means we\’ll just have to desaturate the color on our television sets and turn off our sound to go for the fully silent B&W version then. Maybe find the isolated score on YouTube or something.
Yeah, heaven forbid a corporation juggernaut like Warner Bros lets an artist actually make art.
There\’s a lot more to creating a black and white version of a film than just desaturating it. Contrast adjustments and other colour correction are pretty important.
Simply de-saturating is NOT how proper B&W is done in film or photography.
maverick, are we still on for beach volleyball tomorrow? ::high five!::
Whether or not you think it was a good idea, it seems idiotic to me that the studio would cut it now after Miller gave fans his word that they would see it on the film\’s Blu-ray release. That almost seems like the people in charge of the release were trying to take an intentional shot at Miller, but I could just be over thinking it. Anyway, personally, I was interested to see this brilliant film in the form favored by the guy who made it. Saturation or no, the idea of watching it with the film\’s score as the only sound sounds awesome. Regardless,I still have the Blu-ray release pre-ordered.
Mookie, a professional colorist optimising the print for black and white would have a completely different outcome than simply flicking a switch and sucking out all the saturation.
Some people aren\’t very bright. Black and white versions of films aren\’t always "turning down the saturation". It takes careful conversion to achieve the right look. If you know about "levels" in images, you\’ll understand this. That black and white trailer is not an official release. They simple took existing marketing material and turned the saturation down.
Black and white != desaturated. Depending on the artists vision, you can generate a greyscale image numerous different ways, possibly from a single color channel to emphasize certain parts of a scene.
I think it was a great idea. The script wasn\’t weak. Words aren\’t always needed to get points across.
Will McCrabb is a notorious bullshitter, though, so take everything he says with a pinch of salt.
If Black&White were only desturation of colors… True cinematographic/photographic black and white is a real craft and i am sure Geroge Miller\’s black and white cut looks fantastic. I truely hope to see it.
Daniel, how many times did you climax while watching Fury Road?
The UK release doesn\’t mean anything. In the UK, they have to rate everything, including extras and are charged by the minute. Lots of UK releases have fewer extras for that reason.
If only the technology existed for televisions to be able to change their "Saturation" setting, then we could all enjoy b&w ANYTHING from the comfort of our own homes.
Well done Daniel.
Was an incredible idea, anyway. The film\’s biggest strength was it\’s composition. B&w will only make that more clear and draw even more attention to its use of action, not chatter, to convey symbolic meaning.
Was a stupid idea anyway. The film\’s biggest strength was its vibrancy. B&w will just draw even more attention to its weak script.