It sounds as if production on the next installment of Mad Max has hit a fork in the road, with Tom Hardy recently at Cannes indicating that he has no idea when production will commence. The in demand actor was relatively unknown when his casting in the follow up was announced; now with his role in the soon to be released Batman flick, plus a slew of other big budget flicks behind him, the next Mad Max could be on hold.
Recently at Cannes, the actor who’s been sporting a beard for the role confirmed that the production still has no set start date: “We keep moving that around, you know?” he shrugs. “Who knows when it’ll come out? I’ve been on stand-by for two years… but it’s all part of it. It’s kind of the cool thing to do, to be elusive with dates and all that.”
There was talk that production on the next Mad Max would be so ambitious that it might last a year, now speculation suggests that the budget is being trimmed to compensate for the already costly delays. Speaking with Empire, Hardy went on to say, somewhat sarcastically:
It was going to be a year of filming, then six months, and now we’re supposed to be doing it in six days. It’s a musical – we’re going to go around shopping centres in a little wagon and sing songs. People were expecting big, but we’re going to give them small. It’ll be a live, free-running musical and it’s coming to a place near you soon.
After the failure of Happy Feet 2, it’s possible that things at George Miller‘s production company are somewhat shaky. While the lure of explosive road carnage seemed attractive at first, there been some production missteps along the way – the most noteworthy being the relocation to Namibia, which was justified because the Broken Hill location in the Australian outback no longer looked desolate (except there’s still plenty of spots that resemble the roads depicted in the highly successful sequel, The Road Warrior) not to mention the advantages of digital retouching.
Additionally the logic for another installment that picks up where Mel Gibson left off seems somewhat flawed – okay so Mel might have gone Mad, but fans would still prefer it if he was continuing the story. For the new movie to succeed and for Hardy to successfully step into the role, a rebooted story that leads up to the post apocalyptic wastelands would better resonate.
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