The fourthMad Maxmovie,Fury Road, took three decades to make, but the story of the belated sequel’s delayed production is a messy, complex one. The 2024 release ofFuriosa: A Mad Max Sagamarked the arrival of the firstMad Maxmovie since 2015’sMad Max: Fury Road. However, this expensive, long-awaited prequel was nowhere near as delayed as its immediate predecessor. It took director George Miller nine years to makeFuriosa: A Mad Max Saga, but it took a staggering three decades to getMad Max: Fury Roadon cinema screens in 2015.
When & Why Furiosa Turned Against Immortan Joe In The Mad Max Franchise (Before Fury Road)
While Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga never explains when Furiosa turned on Immortan Joe, close inspection explains this Mad Max franchise twist’s timing.
This sort of lengthy gap between sequels isn’t entirely unheard of thanks to rare outliers likeTop Gun: MaverickandReturn to Oz. However, the reasons behindMad Max: Fury Road’s delayed arrival were more complicated and numerous than readers might assume. As noted in author Kyle Buchanan’s 2022 bookBlood, Sweat, & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, Miller’s plans for the fourthMad Maxmovie dated back to the third movie’s 1985 release. Despite this, the series spent thirty years languishing in development hell beforeMad Max: Fury Roadbecame its most critically acclaimed outing.
In an interview withHomecrux, production designer Colin Gibson revealed that Miller showed him storyboards for theMad Maxfollow-up that dated back to the late ‘80s. Per Gibson, “I think he had planned that right from 1987. Despite numerous setbacks and obstacles, including production delays and geopolitical turmoil, Miller’s vision persisted.” Gibson isn’t exaggerating when he noted that a wide-ranging set of events impacted the next addition totheMad Maxtimeline.Everything from the original series star Mel Gibson’s many controversies to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center imperiled the sequel’s productionover the years.
Miller’s original plan forMad Max: Fury Roadwas outlined alongside British comic writer Brendan McCarthy and co-written by Nico Lathouris. Per Buchanan’s account, this was a wild treatment where Max was tasked with ferrying semen across the wasteland by a fertility-obsessed villain. However, as bizarre as this story sounds, elements of this treatment did make it into the final movie. InMad Max: Fury Road’s near-wordless story, Max is first glimpsed being taken hostage by the War Boys. Immortan Joe’s henchmen then put him to use as a human blood bag, something seen in the original script.
In the first draft,Max was originally first seen nude as he hung from the ceiling being used as a blood bag. This was replaced by a fast-paced chase sequence through the Citadel wherein Max’s hallucinations saw him fall into the traps laid by the War Boys. Many elements ofMad Max: Fury Road’s eventual story have their origins in Miller’s meticulously planned storyboards, but the movie’s production process remained a nightmare. This version of the script entered pre-production with Gibson set to reprise his role as Max, but the September 11 attacks resulted in a disparity between the Australian and American dollars.
Mad Max: Fury Road’s infamous onset feud between Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron proved that controversy seemed destined to plague the cast.
This economic upset made international co-production finanically impossible. Meanwhile, the American invasion of Iraq and subsequent destabilization of the Middle East and North Africa led to issues with the movie shooting in Namibia, according to Miller. By the time the production was back on track, Gibson’s many controversial actions resulted in the decision to recast Max. Per Miller, Gibson’s focus on his directing career and his aging were the issue. However,Mad Max: Fury Road’s infamous onset feudbetween Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron proved that controversy seemed destined to plague the cast regardless of recasting decisions.
Finally, in 2007, Miller expressed his interest in making a fourthMad Maxmovie without Gibson’s involvement.Mad Max: Fury Road’s pre-production began in 2009, some six years before the movie would ever actually reach a cinema screen. The project was always planned to be an R-rated reboot with minimal dialogue, but casting Max proved tricky. Armie Hammer, Eric Bana, and even the rapper Eminem were all considered for the part, but Hardy was eventually cast in 2010. The movie was set to be shot in the Australian city of Broken Hill, but another hiccup delayed production when record-breaking rains broke out.
Mad Max: Fury Road was shot in Namibia as had originally been planned over a decade earlier.
The arid desert of Broken Hill soon became a lush, green paradise, which was uniquely unsuitable for the dystopian sequel’s story. As such,Mad Max: Fury Road was shot in Namibiaas had originally been planned over a decade earlier. The ambitious production involved many practical effects and a huge amount of stunt work, both of which would have been tricky to pull off even in the most welcoming conditions. The desert setting proved less than hospitable to these big plans, with the movie’s star Theron later saying that shooting in the searing sand was extremely taxing.
Fortunately,Mad Max: Fury Roadwas finally released on July 28, 2025, and went on to become a massive box office success,earning over $380 million and ten Oscar nominations. In the years that followed,Mad Max: Fury Roadwould come to occupy a unique cultural position as both a massive mainstream blockbuster success and a critical darling.Parasitedirector Bong Joon-Hosingled outMad Max: Fury Roadas a major influence on his Oscar winner, citing the almost dialogue-free visual storytelling as an inspired choice. Meanwhile, countless action movies attempted to ape Miller’s distinctive style.
Mad Max franchise performance
1979
$200,000
$100 million
90%
1981
$2 million
$36 million
94%
1985
$10 million
79%
2015
$150 million
$380.4 million
97%
2024
$168 million
$173 million
Since then,Mad Max: Fury Roadhas come to be seen as a singularly impressive modern masterpiece. However, its journey to the big screen was undoubtedly hard-won. Miller spent decades trying to finance the movie and struggled at every turn, only for the production process itself to repeatedly be hit with unlikely delays and absurd misfortune. By 2015, outside observers could have been forgiven for assuming the movie was cursed. However, the belatedMad MaxsequelFury Roadinstead turned out to be among the most influential and important action movies of the twenty-first century despite its messy origin story.
Sources:Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, Kyle Buchanan (viaAmazon)
