The 'Biggest Anxiety' That Loomed Over Mad Max: Fury Road's Set Every Single Day
"Mad Max: Fury Road" is a miracle of filmmaking. George Miller's magnum opus defies logic, spits in the face of death and studio cowardice, and delivers a cacophony of action in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. After years of setbacks, both financial and natural, not only did the movie get made, but it remains one of the best studio blockbusters of all time — and it was rather successful at the Oscars, to boot.
Part of why the action scenes in "Fury Road" look so good is because they were real, and also really dangerous to shoot — including having someone drive a rolling War Rig for real. This is not exactly new for the franchise, of course, as "Mad Max 2" famously had a stunt performer break a leg on screen, and that shot made it to the final film.
Still, as George Miller said in an interview for the book "Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road," the biggest anxiety while making the movie was safety. "One hundred and thirty-eight days, big stunt days every day, and I was thinking: what do we have to do today not to kill anybody?" the director said.
"I can say that pretty much every day, someone was in danger," added Scotty Gregory, who worked on stunts for the film.
This is not to say that Miller was aiming for danger and risk, mind you. Quite the contrary. The Oscar-winning director of "Happy Feet" previously talked about rejecting some concept work because "it just defied physics in some way, or you couldn't really figure out how it got from present day through all the apocalyptic events into a world 50 years hence."
George Miller didn't want anyone to take risks on the set of Mad Max: Fury Road
Indeed, producer Iain Smith said in the making-of book that Miller is very careful when it comes to stunts, in no small part due to him having lost his producing partner Byron Kennedy in a helicopter accident. "So he was very, very strong about this with the crew, that no one should take risks, everything should be planned, and if anyone saw anything that was out of order or untoward, then they raise their hand and yell and we would stop production instantly," Smith said. "And that saved a few dangerous situations."
Of course, accidents still happen. Recently, a stuntwoman working on the prequel film "Furiosa" suffered a serious head injury requiring life-saving surgery. Fans immediately jumped at the chance to help out and crowdfunded her medical treatment, succeeding at paying for the surgery and rehabilitation.
Recently, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that they'll be introducing a new category to the Oscars — best casting. While that is deserved, it is a travesty that the Oscars still don't award the art of stuntwork. If that category had been in place when "Fury Road" was in theaters, the film surely would have walked — or, more likely, wildly sped — away with the trophy.