Starting with the 1979 film featuring Mel Gibson, George Miller’s Mad Max film series has expanded to include multiple movies, including the 2015 Oscar-winning film Fury Road. The franchise is poised for further expansion with upcoming films like Furiosa and The Wasteland. A consistent theme across both past and future installments is the dystopian or post-apocalyptic desert setting, a hallmark of the franchise.
And Miller recently explained his rationale for selecting this setting, emphasizing that practical considerations, rather than creativity influenced the decision.
George Miller Explained the Reason Behind the Dystopian Setting in the Mad Max Films
During his appearance at CinemaCon, renowned filmmaker George Miller discussed his choice of a dystopian setting for the Mad Max franchise. He shared that they were aiming for a universally understood film relying heavily on visuals.
“The idea was to make a film where, as Hitchcock says, ‘They don’t have to read the subtitles in Japan,” he shared, as per Screen Rant, before adding, “A film that relies entirely on visual.” While there were challenges, particularly related to the film’s finances, they still pursued the idea.
Other challenges with the movie included filming the action sequences with a fleet of vehicles in the city in the modern day. And it led them to set the film in a dystopian future to utilize empty streets and rundown buildings.
“It was almost impossible to do action sequences in the city in the modern day, on local streets with all those cars, and so on. The idea was to set it in a dystopian future simply because we could film it in empty streets and rundown buildings and so on.”
Miller further asserted how the practical decision to set the franchise in the dystopian future unintentionally gave it deeper symbolic significance, contrasting with its potential as a naturalistic present-day narrative.
George Miller Shared Insight into Furiosa at CinemaCon
During a special presentation at CinemaCon, George Miller provided insight into the origins of Furiosa. He shared that the character initially materialized while he was working on the 2015 film Fury Road. He said,
“In order to tell the story in ‘Fury Road,’ we had to know everything that happened. [That] story was told in three days; this story is told in 10-13 years.”
He further elaborated on the meticulous world-building process, revealing that detailed backstories were crafted for each character, including Furiosa and Max Rockatansky, detailing the years leading up to the events depicted in Mad Max: Fury Road.
The decision to greenlit Furiosa came after the overwhelming success of Fury Road. The 2015 film starring an ensemble cast including Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron became the highest-grossing installment in the franchise, and garnered widespread critical acclaim, along with six Oscars at the 88th Academy Awards.
Mad Max: Fury Road is available to stream on Max.
Furiosa is set to release on May 24, 2024.
