Copyright (0000) HS, Sunday

Road rage. Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky.

Mad Max vehicle comes to a dead end

Sunday, Herald Sun, Melbourne, Victoria.

By ADAM ZWAR

13jun04

THE long-awaited fourth Mad Max film, Fury Road, has collapsed after three years of development, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sets have been locked away in warehouses, the film's production offices have shut and the caterers have been cancelled.
It appears Mad Max: Fury Road director Dr George Miller has turned his attention to making the third instalment of the successful family movie, Babe.

Mad Max: Fury Road was due to go into production last July in Namibia, but was stalled because of security concerns following the outbreak of war in Iraq.

A year later, the $100 million Fury Road has been shelved indefinitely.

Miller said he could not move the film to Australia, where the previous three Mad Max films were made, because he feared the cars used in the new movie would become bogged in the Australian desert.

"Unfortunately, we won't be able to shoot in Australia, although I'd dearly love to," he said.

"We need some real big stretches of desert where the cars don't get bogged.

"Those deserts in South Australia would do, but it's not practical for the cars."

And, as for Mel Gibson, who was signed on to revive the role of road warrior Max Rockatansky, well, his enthusiasm for the project seems to have waned in recent months.

"I'm too old and I can't deal with the action stuff any more," he said. "It's getting to the point where they'll start calling it Fat Max."

Miller has apparently written and illustrated a 400-page storyboard/comic book of the proposed film.

The original Mad Max, released in 1979, was filmed outside Broken Hill for $500,000 and returned more than $100 million at the box office.