10 Things You Didn’t Know About Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road crashed into theaters in 2015 and instantly became one of the best action films of the last couple of decades. For a new generation of action fans, it continued this new arc of the character of Max but, more importantly, started this new story of the Road Warrior Furiosa. Full of insane stunts and chases and an amount of detail that you would normally see in a historical drama, Fury Road has cemented itself in the annals of history as one of the few franchises that have been resurrected in a positive light. George Miller likens filmmaking to fighting a battle. You get your army ready, plan your course of attack, and then go out and try to do it. The making of Mad Max: Fury Road may be the perfect film for that type of metaphor.

With this much detail, there comes a great amount of behind the scenes footage so I hope that I’ve found a handful of items that you didn’t already know. This is 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Mad Max: Fury Road.

1. Miller had the idea for Fury Road back in 1995 while crossing a crosswalk. Two years later, he would revisit the idea while flying on a late night flight. He decided that he would draw the story. For the next two years they drew an extended storyboard for the film that included 3500 panels.

2. They traveled all around the world initially to find the perfect place to film. Originally they went to Bolivia, Chile, China, Mexico, Jordan, Kazakhstan, and Dubai before finally deciding on Namibia.

3. The film went into pre-production of sorts in the year 2000. They started building things in Namibia for the film and then 9/11 happened and the US Dollar dropped. In two or three days they lost a quarter of their budget and they had to destroy the vehicles they had made and end any forward progress on the film.

4. In 2009 they moved to Broken Hill, where The Road Warrior was filmed. They rebuilt the vehicles, cast the film, and built an “airstrip” so they could practice the stunts for the film. Everything was ready to film and then a massive storm hit and flooded the entire area with 21 inches of rainfall. The desert turned into a blossoming green landscape and they had to put everything in storage.

5. Production was moved back to Namibia. It finally began in the summer of 2012 with many of the main cast that had be planned a few years earlier.

6. Cars were a metaphor for power. In a world where there is next to nothing left, the amount of cars and vehicles you could control meant you were an extremely powerful person. The film itself had 150 vehicles.

7. Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy had a hard time with the filming. It was a very physical and arduous time and the script was non-existent. They had basically a comic book to follow that George had made years earlier and the final film followed as close to that book as possible. It was difficult for the actors to get into the characters and understand what was happening during many of the scenes. It’s pretty clear that Theron and Hardy weren’t thrilled with the filming style of George Miller and his crew.

8. The first test screening was kind of disastrous. People complained about many of the elements of the film that would make it more popular. They didn’t like the guitar guy, they thought that Max should have spoken more, and they grew tired of all the car action. They then went to Australia to film the opening and the finale of the movie. After having all of the pieces together, they decided to edit together the film that they wanted instead of sending it to another screening as the studio wanted.

9. The film showed its first footage at Comic Con that year to a packed crowd. Then it screened at Cannes Film Festival and Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron finally understood the vision of George Miller. On the stage in front of everyone, Hardy apologized to Miller for the misunderstandings during production and seemed to succumb to the genius of Miller’s vision. More importantly, it felt like both of them finally understood one another.

10. The film won 6 Academy Awards in a row and Tom Hardy describes the experience as a brilliant nightmare. George Miller and his fellow crewmembers went through hell trying to get the picture from idea to completion and the final shots were recorded some 20 years after his initial idea.