George Miller Approached Furiosa Differently Than Every Other Mad Max Sequel
Does this ever happen to you? You're going on about your day, minding your own business, when it suddenly hits you — the sound of a V8 engine roaring, of a flaming electric guitar, and a young man screaming "witness me!" and you start thinking about how lucky we are to live in a world where "Mad Max: Fury Road" came out? All movies are a miracle, but "Fury Road" feels almost like the result of divine intervention.
What makes "Fury Road" incredible is that George Miller's masterpiece was not just one of the best movies of the 21st century, and not only was it a critical success, but it made a lot of money and even went on to win several Academy Awards.
So it makes sense that Miller, who has one of the most diverse filmographies out there, would return to make another "Mad Max" movie with "Furiosa." Even though we're only slowly learning about just what the hell this movie is, what we know gives me reason enough to be excited. This is the first spin-off in the franchise, the first one with a female lead, and the first not to feature the titular Max — presumably. A lot of things about this film feel different from the rest of the franchise, down to Miller admitting he approached "Furiosa" differently.
Not another happy accident
Speaking to The Guardian, Miller recognized that he made the choice to make "Furiosa" simply because it seemed to make total sense. According to the director, the other movies that focused on Max Rockatansky were "happy accidents or sudden arrivals." They weren't necessarily planned out in advance. "It's like John Lennon says: life is what happens when you're making other plans," Miller said. "I have all kinds of other plans. But somehow I keep going back to Mad Max."
Indeed, the first two "Mad Max" sequels came about after rather unpredictable circumstances. Miller decided to make "Road Warrior" after being courted by Hollywood studios, as an attempt to see what he could do with more resources. Then, for "Beyond Thunderdome," it was the sudden and tragic death of Miller's producing partner Bryon Kennedy that inspired Miller to go into production as a means to distract himself from the grief. And even then, he's admitted he can't remember much of the experience of shooting that movie due to his grieving.
Even "Fury Road" came as a relative accident. According to Miller, he came up with an idea that made him excited to return to the Wasteland way back in 1998. He came up with the idea while on a plane from Los Angeles to Australia, conceiving the idea of a story where marauders fought not for fuel or resources, but for human beings.
Witness me!
When it comes to "Furiosa," however, things were different. That's because Miller wrote virtually the entire script for the film even before shooting began on "Fury Road" — though that's not saying much since that movie took forever to get made. More importantly, "Furiosa" was planned from the very beginning, unlike the other "Mad Max" movies. As Miller tells it, he realized the world he was creating for "Fury Road" became so big, and most of it was to go unexplained, that he decided to make another movie to better show how the world of that film came to be.
"It came out of a need to explain [Fury Road's] world which, as I said, essentially happened over three days and two nights. It's really trying to explain how that world came to be."
Now, the big question is, will Coma-Doof Warrior appear?