George Miller Says He’s Done Directing Mad Max Movies (UPDATED)
Update: Not surprisingly, George Miller has since clarified this statement to The Wrap, saying that he was misquoted and still wants to direct more Mad Max movies eventually.
With Mad Max: Fury Road topping many best of 2015 lists and currently gunning for some possible Oscar nominations, George Miller has been doing a lot of additional press over the past couple of weeks. As usual, he has been fielding questions about a potential Fury Road follow-up, which was sounding pretty likely last May. However, more recently he has been talking about his desire to do a much smaller film, perhaps one shot on an iPhone like Sean Baker’s Tangerine. Now the latest quote from Miller implies that he will not be directing any more Mad Max films at all. Here’s what he had to say:
“I won’t make more Mad Max movies… If you finish one in a year, it’s considered a leap of faith. Start, stop, start again. I’ve shot in Australia in a field of wild flowers and flat red earth when it rained heavily forever. We had to wait 18 months and every return to the US was 27 hours. Those Mad Maxes take forever. I won’t do those anymore.”
There are a few ways to interpret this statement. The most obvious is that he will hand over the reins of the Mad Max series to another young director (he already hinted at this in an interview with Studio 360). It’s also possible that he wants to direct a much smaller movie set in the Mad Max universe, although something tells me that will not sit well with the folks at Warner Brothers. Lastly, he could co-direct, which is something he did for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (widely regarded as the worst in the series).
We do know that George Miller has been working on the story for at least one more new Mad Max movie. He also told EW that he wants to get into Furiosa’s back story at some point. It seems likely that he would at least be involved as a writer and producer on the next film. What do you think? Would you like to see a new Mad Max movie from another director or should they just throw in the towel if Miller is not behind the camera?
