20 Things You Didn't Know About Mad Max: Fury Road

20. George Miller Never Planned On Going Beyond Thunderdome

In the modern movie climate any film property with an ounce of name recognition or track record is being throttled for every last red cent of box office blood, so in a way the return of Mad Max was inevitable.

But George Miller didn’t see it that way.

Back in 1979, Miller traded in his doctor’s scrubs for a viewfinder by shepherding lo-fi landmark Mad Max to the big screen, following it up with The Road Warrior two years later and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985. The third movie’s toned-down violence and Peter Pan-esque ‘Tomorrow-morrow Land’ plot diversion prompted comparisons with Return Of The Jedi, and a healthy financial return couldn’t mask the general feeling that Max had run out of road.

Which for the longest time was exactly how Miller felt until, innocuously crossing a Los Angeles street in 1998, an idea for a new Mad Max movie popped into his head and refused to go away:

“Two years after that, I was on a plane flying across the Pacific during the night – from Los Angeles to Sydney – and the whole movie played in my head. It was in a rough form and it was very misty but the scenes played. By the time I landed, I told everyone, 'I think we're going to make another Mad Max movie.' ”