Directors seem awfully kind, these days, to their fans whith Duncan Jones releasing, recently, the first pics of the upcoming World of Warcraft movie and George Miller breaking great news to the fans of the Mad Max franchise.
The Mad Max adventure, a sci-fi movie series, was a huge hit back in the 1980s when the young Mel Gibson played judge, juror and executioner in the apocalyptic future set in the wastelands of Australia. The character of "Mad" Max Rockatansky was set on a vengeful path after his best friend, wife and baby were killed, and we follow his adventures as he takes on the road to oblivion on three different occasions:
- Mad Max [1979]
- Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior [1981]
- Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome [1985]
The movie had great success and a decent sized fanbase but there was no notion to continue it for over a decade.
Until, in 1998, the director of the original movies, George Miller, dreamt up an idea for the fourth installation of the Mad Max series. Mel Gibson was convinced to reprise his role as Max and with the help of 20th Century Fox the film was all set to shoot in 2001. However, due to a series of unfortunate events, such as the tragic 9/11 attacks and travel restrictions to the production site in Namibia, the movie was postponed.
Several years passed, Gibson was replaced by Tom Hardy, 20th Century Fox by Warner Bros. and production finally began in late 2012. The film was titled Mad Max: Fury Road and released to theaters worldwide on the 15th of May 2015 - 30 years after the third movie premiered.
Even though the new Mad Max movie was beaten by Pitch Perfect 2 at the box offices, during its first weekend, the post-apocalyptic film still managed to gross over $100 million worldwide in the first days of showing. More importantly, Fury Road has been praised by fans and critics alike: the sequel received a score of 8.8 on Imdb, 98% from critics and 92% from the audience on RottenTomatoes.
George Miller was quick to react to the positive criticism on his Twitter and confirmed that the franchise would be continued: "Thanks for all the kind words written and said about the film. We had a lot of fun making it… and there's more Max to come." wrote Miller on his wall.
While there is no official greenlight from the studio yet, it seems all but decided. Even the title of the sequel has already surfaced on the internet - Mad Max: The Wasteland.
