10 Film Franchises That Became Something Else Entirely
7. Mad Max
It might surprise you to learn that a film series called "Mad Max" actually started off fairly realistically.
George Miller's first trip to a dystopian down under doesn't actually take place during a full-blown apocalypse. It is instead set during the breakdown of society, as the country struggles to come to terms with mass oil shortages. Mel Gibson plays Max Rockatansky, a police officer tasked with keeping order in a crumbling world.
By the time the second Mad Max movie comes along, the world hasn't just crumbled, it's disintegrated.
Max now finds himself a hermitic survivor in a world ravaged by full-on nuclear war. It is this film, called The Road Warrior in the US, that introduces the whole "weird mutant people" element of the franchise.
The third film, Beyond Thunderdome, takes this concept to the extreme. It has Tina Turner in it for goodness' sake!
2015's Fury Road returned the series to slightly more grounded roots, but it was still utterly mental. With that film garnering so much success, expect to see Miller lean more into the zaniness of the franchise going forward.
Maybe he'll even get Tina back.