'Mad Max: Fury Road' Director George Miller Wants To Make A Smaller Movie Before He Returns To The Wasteland

After the success of Mad Max: Fury Road (/Film's overall favorite movie of the year), director George Miller could've decided to take a nice long break and no one would have blamed him. Seriously. After a few years of managing car crashes in the desert, a lengthy vacation to a relaxing place sounds about right.

But nope! Instead, he's been doing non-stop interviews, addressing questions about a potential Mad Max 5 or a Furiosa spin-off, and preparing to launch himself immediately into another project. And that brings us to today's big George Miller update: yes, he would love to make a Mad Max sequel, but he's going to make something smaller first. Something inspired by a movie shot on an iPhone.

That shot-on-an-iPhone movie is Tangerine, Sean Baker's critically lauded indie that somehow used an everyday smartphone to craft a movie that is as vibrant and colorful as anything else released in 2015. Miller, who has never shied away from playing around with new technology or pushing himself in new directions, told the Wall Street Journal about wanting to get small and experimental for his next film:

I seriously would love to do something on the iPhone. It's really an interesting exercise. It's so available now, if you have something to say. It won't be on an iPhone, but it's leaning in that direction [...] I don't make many films. I have to really feel some strong gravitational pull both in the story and something to do with the technological shift. If there's a new tool or a new process, it's always very interesting [to me].

Miller also spoke with Entertainment Weekly (via The Playlist), reiterating that his next movie will be something small and manageable that won't involve managing a literal army of stuntmen and crew across a hazardous location. Yeah yeah, another Mad Max is in the works, but it's second in the queue:

Yes, I have. And certainly having conversations about it. But I'm not sure if it's the very next movie I want to do. I've got something a bit smaller before we go back out into the wasteland — something that's contemporary that we can get through fairly quickly. And something with not too much technical difficulty. Something more performance-based and so on, just to clear the exhaust.

So what could be next for Mr. Miller? In addition to the four Mad Max movies, he's also helmed animated musicals like Happy Feet, family adventures like Babe: Pig in the City, dramas like Lorenzo's Oil, and horror comedies like The Witches of Eastwick. In other words, it would be foolish to even try to predict what he's going to do next. He'll literally do whatever the hell he wants to do.

And yes, Miller is considering a spin-off film for Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa. She even has an extensive backstory and everything:

Yeah, she's a pretty compelling character so it would be great to tell her story. Her backstory is really interesting. We only allude to it in this movie because this movie is on the run; people don't have much time for recreational talk. But you pick up, you have a sense of her having gone through stuff. That's what the film is trying to do. You're trying to put a lot of iceberg under the tip, I like saying.

With the Oscar nominations being announced next week, and with Miller a serious contender for a Best Director nod, he may have to keep on talking about potential Mad Max sequels for the foreseeable future. Just do what you gotta do to get more movies made, sir.