In five short years, the stories that surround the making of “Mad Max: Fury Road” have already become legendary. From the immense amount of work that went into the 9+ months shoot to the multiple stoppages to the tensions between cast and crew, the whole production seemed doomed to fail. But then it didn’t. ‘Fury Road’ would go on to be a box office hit, win several Oscars, and become one of the greatest action films of all time. And as is spotlighted in the new NY Times feature, the ‘Mad Max’ sequel almost looked very, very different.
Though it was released in 2015, the story of ‘Fury Road’ almost two decades prior, in 1998, with the first development of a ‘Mad Max’ sequel with George Miller at the helm. Unfortunately, after a few years of work, what would become ‘Fury Road’ hit its first snag—9/11. The attack on the World Trade Center buildings led to the eventual shut down of the film.
“I was in Namibia in 2003 when I got the call to stop spending money,” said production designer Colin Gibson. “I don’t know whether [the studio] decided to reroute their money back to the Iraq war, or if it was the email I got from Mel Gibson’s wife asking me how many Muslims there may or may not be in Namibia and, therefore, how interested she may or may not be in the whole family coming to visit.”
During that time, Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy weren’t attached to star in the film. Mel Gibson, who played Mad in the first film and subsequent sequels was still involved. And for his female co-star? One producer said Uma Thurman was mentioned as a possible Furiosa. Though it was still a long time before it eventually got made, Miller said that he still considered Theron as a possibility.
“I remember we were talking about Charlize even then,” he explained. “Her agent said she wasn’t interested, but I mentioned it to her over a decade later, and she said, ‘No one ever told me!’”
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Eventually, the film was shut down and lay dormant for a decade. And when the film was back in development, Miller knew that Gibson was too old to play Max. This led to a search for a new lead.
“I did a chemistry test with Jeremy Renner reading for Max because they hadn’t hired Tom yet,” said Zoe Kravitz, who would star as one of the “wives.”
But once George Miller saw Tom Hardy, he knew the actor was perfect for the role.
“I had the same feeling about Tom that I had when Mel Gibson first walked into the room: There was a kind of edgy charm, the charisma of animals,” said the filmmaker. “You don’t know what’s going on in their inner depths, and yet they’re enormously attractive.”
So, with Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron attached, filming began on ‘Fury Road.’ Well, almost. You see, the locations that were going to serve as the desert world of ‘Mad Max’ had a freak, once-in-a-century rainstorm that changed the climate, with flowers blooming and the whole landscape being altered. That forced the production to delay itself just two weeks before filming was to begin.
A year-and-a-half later, in 2012, filming did eventually start and lasted for 9 grueling months. That’s where the highly-publicized on-set issues between Hardy, Theron, and Miller began. But just as the crew could see the light at the end of the tunnel, Warner Bros. pulled the plug yet again due to budgetary concerns, with only a month left to film. Luckily, the studio head would be replaced eventually, and in 2013, the production was able to reconvene for month-long shooting to finish the film.
And thus, two years later, “Mad Max: Fury Road” was unleashed on unsuspecting audiences. It’s fitting that such an insane film has such an insane production, huh?
