MAD MAX Rides Again
Wednesday December 11 12:45 PM ET
Mel Gibson teaming up with writer-director George Miller for fourth Mad Max film.
By Claire Runitz, FilmStew.com
Mel Gibson will be reteaming with writer-director George Miller to breathe new life into the Mad Max franchise. Daily Variety reports that Gibson will receieve an upwards of $25 million to star in and produce a fourth installment of the post-apocalyptic franchise for 20th Century Fox, with the over $100 million-budgeted pic to begin lensing in Australia during the late Spring.
Gibson and Miller first teamed for the Mad Max films in 1979 when the original Max film premiered. That film, hardly seen in the U.S. at the time, went on to spawn two more films: 1981’s Mad Max: The Road Warrior and 1985’s Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, both of which were released by Warner Bros.
Miller, who had directed and co-written all three films, won the rights to the franchise back from Warners in 1997 when he agreed to detach himself from the Jodie Foster-starring Contact, allowing Robert Zemeckis to direct that film.
About 10 months ago, shortly after Gibson and his Icon Productions signed a two-year, first-look deal with Fox, talks began to revive the Max franchise from a script that Miller had been working on for about three years. The new film, Fury Road, will see Mad Max once again in the post-apocalyptic Australian outback and will be produced by Miller and producing partner Doug Mitchell along with Gibson and his Icon partner Bruce Davey.
This will be the first collaboration between Miller and Fox. Icon’s deal at Fox recently locked down a greenlight on the feature Paparazzi, to star Cole Hauser, which will begin filming in October. Gibson, represented by International Creative Management, also recently agreed to head back behind the camera to direct James Caviezel in The Passion.
The Mad Max franchise has become a cult hit in the United States. The original three films did not slam the box office charts. Combined, the three films only grossed $69 million at the U.S. box office, and the franchise didn’t even begin to spread stateside until the release of Road Warrior.