We Can't Wait #4: Mad Max: Fury Road
Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at 11:30AM Team Experience is counting down our 15 most anticipated for 2015. Here's Glenn...
Who & What: Despite being a sequel – and a third sequel at that – there’s something refreshing about seeing Mad Max: Fury Road on the summer schedule. A passion project of the classic variety, George Miller’s 30-years-in-the-making fourth entry in the influential and groundbreaking dystopian action franchise comes to screens with fire-cannons blazin’. Starring a barely audible Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron’s shaved head and Nicholas Hoult with cracked-out make-up, this elaborately mounted Aussie action fantasy will surely be an IMAX spectacle of the highest order.
Why We’re Excited: Have you seen The Road Warrior? That’s why we’re excited. George Miller is one of the finest director of whizz-bang sequences that cinema has ever seen and I can only imagine what he’ll do with the mammoth budget that he was (inexplicably) given for Fury Road. It’s unlikely that Miller’s distinctly one-of-a-kind automobile mayhem will be what mainstream blockbuster audiences think they want in a year that has Avengers and Star Wars sequels, but it’s also unlikely that Fury Road will be like anything we’ve ever seen before. And then there’s the trailer. The best trailer of any film this year that we’ll see I’m sure of it. It genuinely should’ve been considered for Oscar’s best live-action short category.
What if It All Goes Wrong? George Miller doesn’t exactly do quiet very well. Despite receiving an Oscar nomination for the dying-child melodrama Lorenzo’s Oil, his directing career is more known for bombastic explosions of style. I’ve been skeptical of the project for a while given it started filming over three years ago and has been through more delays than I can count. Furthermore, what we’ve heard suggests the movie is literally just one long, extended chase scene and that Hardy barely speaks a word. Miller’s walking on a very shaky tightrope here and he could face-plant in the worst way, but much like James Cameron it’s probably not wise to bet on it.
When: Max takes over screens globally on May 15th. Only Japan and Brazil have to wait an extra week. How will they cope?!?
Previously...
#5 The Lobster
#6 Crimson Peak
#7 45 Years
#8 Bridge of Spies
#9 Taxi
#10 Freeheld
#11 A Bigger Splash
#12 The Dressmaker
#13 The Hateful Eight
#14 Knight of Cups
#15 Arabian Nights
Sidebar 3 Animated Films
Sidebar 2 Tomorrowland
Sidebar 1 Avengers: Age of Ultron
Intro Pick a Blockbuster
Reader Comments (24)
This is high on my list as well. I work at a movie theater and one of my favorite things to do is watch trailers on my break. After I saw this trailer, I picked up my jaw and I literally said "I want to go to there."
So this is a sequel and not a reboot or a prequel? I haven't been reading any plot details (if there are any) to go in cold when I see it.
Whether it's good or whether it's not, I think this will suffer the same fate as other desert-set summer blockbusters like John Carter and The Lone Ranger. I just don't think audiences want to see boring sand-vistas as far as the eye can see.
That trailer is truly a thing of burnt orange whiz-bang beauty. and the cast.
OPENING NIGHT.
The Jack: Neither of those movies failed because they were set in a desert. The Lone Ranger failed because of being a bloated movie that relied on "Native American Jack Sparrow" as a selling point, forgetting that people were already half tired of the original and certainly weren't interested in the racist version. John Carter failed because it was generic as all get out. It's been a long time since people consistently based their vision of the post-apocalypse on Mad Max and the last two that really went there cinematically (brutal, deserty wasteland with car to car combat) were Resident Evil: Extinction and that cruddy Denzel movie The Book of Eli.
Volvagia, I'm not saying that the fact that those films were set in the desert were the only reasons they failed, or that I agree that sand and desert is boring (I love westerns), but I genuinely believe that it played a part. The fact that they were bad films is only part of the issue - plenty of bad films have made money and had big opening weekends. The fact is that John Carter and The Lone Ranger (and probably other films that I'm not thinking of right now) looked boring and monotonous in their publicity because they all just seemed to take place in the desert.
I'm not saying that Mad Max won't be good, but if my theory is correct, the public won't be interested,
This shit has been numero uno on my list, in my head, and in heart since the first trailer hit
Jack, I'd take your theory more seriously if the trailer wasn't one of most universally beloved trailers of the year. There's a pretty big damn interest as far as I can see, more than John Carter and Lone Ranger ever got, which everybody and their momma were calling for them to be bombs YEARS before they came out.
Totally different situations here.
When the originals came out they were so different, innovative, and influential. It was like "The Matrix", the plot didn't matter a whole lot, everyone loved Mel Gibson, the leather, the desert, and the exploding cars. Black cars, leather and the smell of popcorn, that's what I remember.
For George Miller's sake I hope it isn't an embarrassment. I don't know how a contemporary audience will receive this, but it has me curious. I hope it's a hit.
Hardy and Theron have star power to burn, and I think they alone could sell this--and then you have this kick-ass trailer to boot. I think word of mouth will be crucial on something like this. Hopes are high.
That trailer was one of the most beautifully bat-shit crazy things I've seen in a while. I only hope the entire feature is its equal.
I'm so pumped for this movie. Miller is a mad genius and the idea of him doing a sustained feature length action sequence is so exciting. I pretty much have total confidence in his ability to pull this off. I'm not sure there's a single movie I'm looking forward to more than this in 2015.
What gets me excited about this movie even more than that absolutely fantastic trailer - which still gets me all hot and bothered every time it shows up in the theater, even though I've seen it a good half-dozen times by now - is that we already know, from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, that Miller can make an absolutely horrible, disastrously campy Mad Max film that's still as electrifying and watchable as anything else out there. So if Fury Road is good, it's going to be great. And if it's awful, it's still probably going to be great.
LESS THAN TWO MONTHS!
I was a YES on this from the moment I heard about it and still a YES with the trailer. The first one was so genius (my favorite of the three) but the other two were pretty special (TINA TURNER!!!!). I"ll be there opening day.
Henry: Mmm, the original has a couple individual moments that are the strongest of the series, but if I were to say which has the most brilliant moments, I'd easily say The Road Warrior.
I have absolutely no connection to the Mad Max series - I've seen pictures from the Mel Gibson films, but that's it - and don't really have any connection to this, either. From the trailer I wasn't sure what tone this thing is going for (post-apocalyptic serious action or campy, batshit excess?), and frankly, it looks like just another version of "things smashing into other things", with more fire and sand. And bald Charlize Theron. Not that I'm not intrigued, but I don't understand the excitement surrounding this. I don't feel anything about it way or the other.
denny: Even at it's best, it's way more the latter. They'll expose more of that excess in the actual movie.
Sequel, reboot or prequel? Anyone?
miller's been nominated for four oscars - winning animated feature for happy feet - but never in the directing category
I am totally looking forward to this one and I am happy to know that others are too, especially those who I would not have thought of as fans.
For people who have not seen any Mad Max films, you don't need to watch the first one to enjoy The Road Warrior especially if the Mad Max 1 you can access is the cut and dubbed USA release.
Paul: According to imdb, Miller told an advance screening audience that it was a reboot. Too many years between the last one and now and this gave him the chance to do something different without changing the main character. There are also 2 sequels in the planning.
I still stand that the first, when they were working more with imagination than budget is the best but I would certainly try to see it with the original accents. I saw all three when I was living in Europe so I've never suffered the dubbed version (didn't even know it existed).
Thanks, Henry.
I have heard this film is both a sequel, a prequel, AND a reboot. Somewhere along the line Miller (I think?) said it takes place between two of the earlier films? But it doesn't really sound like a reboot because the origin story is (blissfully) missing. At least that's what it looks like.
Par, indeed. I kinda love that he has so many nominations for such different projects (producing BABE as well, I believe).
Denny, like I said in the piece, the excitement comes down to *finally* being able to see the man who made THE ROAD WARRIOR do what he does best on an even bigger scale. So far it looks like a blend of your two choices. It does look serious, but also excessive and camp. Did you see BABE 2: PIG IN THE CITY? I like to think it'll be something like that. Which I guess a lot of people hated, but oh well...
Haven't caught Tom Hardy in anything since TDKR, so will be happy to see his beautiful, skeptical face again