Filming Delayed For Mad Max: Fury Road; Production May Not Resume Until 2012

Well this is disappointing. After extensive prep work had gone into setting up back-to-back filming of Mad Max: Fury Road and Mad Max: Furiosa—both to be shot in 3D—the shoot has now been delayed from its originally planned February 2011 date to, if we're lucky, February 2012.

This is the second major setback for the film. Production had already been delayed once before, back in July. The cause then was unseasonal rains, which had made the area too fertile for the intended car stunts that would be taking place.

As unfortunate as all this is for Mad Max fans, the film's crew has it far rougher. The Australian reports on this most recent regression: "The delay has left many major film crew members without work amid fears the high Australian dollar could ultimately kill the film as its budget grows." Does this mean budget issues are to blame? We can only speculate, as the article doesn't specify the reason for the delay.

Pre-production on the film won't resume until later this year, either in August or November. The actual shoot, meanwhile, is anticipated to take place in (as mentioned above) February 2012.

So the silver lining to this news is... the films may actually get made. Not quite what I was hoping for following past exciting updates on George Miller's continuation of the Mad Max saga, which is set to star the great Tom Hardy, but it's less disheartening than the alternative.