10 Movie Stunts That Went Very Wrong (But Are Still In The Film)

9. Stuntman Guy Norris Gets Thrown Through The Air, Breaks His Femur - Mad Max 2

Ghost Rider
Warner Bros.

The stunts in all four Mad Max movies are so impressively brutal that it's genuinely surprising nobody died during the making of them.

Yet the second film certainly had a gnarly near-miss when stuntman Guy Norris performed a risky vehicular stunt during the movie's climax.

Norris played a member of villain Lord Humungus' (Kjell Nilsson) marauder gang, who was supposed to ride a motorcycle into an overturned buggy and flip over the top towards an off-screen area padded with cardboard boxes.

Except, Norris ended up accidentally clipping his knee on the buggy at the moment of impact, causing him to be uncontrollably catapulted through the air, rotating numerous times before hitting the ground.

This left Norris with a broken femur, yet because the resulting stunt looked so damn awesome, director George Miller couldn't bring himself to throw the take out.

Fascinatingly, the final stunt looks so carefully planned, given how balletically Norris flies through the air, that you'd never really guess it went completely wrong.

Despite his sidelining injury, Norris returned to the film's set mere days later to complete a fight scene with Mel Gibson, while propping his broken leg on a box just outside of frame. Australians, man.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.