Introduction
For 55 million years, the Namib Desert has been where things go to die. Thought to be the oldest desert on the planet, itâs a barren wasteland almost completely devoid of human life, a place where the coastline is still studded with the remains of a thousand shipwrecks.
And in September 2012, it was where Mad Max: Fury Road would crash and burn.
Nearly ten thousand miles separate that south African desert from Los Angeles, but midway through Fury Roadâs very long 2012 shoot, plenty of stories about the troubled production had already made their way back to the Hollywood rumor mill. Was it true that the film was wildly behind schedule and over budget because its mercurial lead, Tom Hardy, often failed to show up to set? Had a massive blowup between Hardy and his costar, Charlize Theron, required an outside intervention just so the film wouldnât collapse?
And what the hell was George Miller making, anyway? Though the director had spent months filming Fury Road in Namibia, the footage heâd sent back to Warner Bros. left many executives freaked out. The dialogue sounded incomprehensible, the action scenes appeared astonishingly dangerous, and since Miller wasnât working from a traditional screenplayâinstead, in an unprecedented move, he had plotted the film out solely through storyboardsâstudio executives worried that Fury Road would make no sense once it was cut together. If this expensive boondoggle turned out to be a box-office bomb, forget just losing their jobs: They might never work in Hollywood again.
Jeff Robinov, the bald and beleaguered head of Warner Bros. Pictures, had been sending underlings to the desert to check on Fury Road ever since the movieâs June start. But during the last week of September, Robinov himself flew over to Namibia to take control.
The production was based in a massive tent city in the middle of the desert, a troubled oasis where several hundred crew members now waited to learn their filmâs fate. The first person Robinov encountered there in the sands was P. J. Voeten, Fury Roadâs loyal producer and first assistant director. âWeâre going to finish this film with or without George,â Robinov told him.
Under his breath, Voeten muttered, âGood luck with that.â
Eventually, Robinov made his way to Miller, who cuts a deceptively mild figure: At five foot seven, with wavy white hair, twinkly eyes, and a pair of amber-colored teashade glasses, he has the pleasant Australian lilt and chatty disposition of a favorite grandfather. Perhaps because of that, Miller has been underestimated his whole career, with rogue crew members and studio executives frequently trying to seize control from a man who simply will not budge.
Robinov was hardly the first money man to clash with Miller, but on that day in the desert, he threatened to be the very last. Though there were still three months of shooting left on Fury Road and many crucial scenes still to come, Robinov told Miller he would shut the film down early and then laid down an impossible ultimatum: With such limited time left, Miller could either shoot Fury Roadâs third-act chase or sacrifice it to film the still-unshot beginning and ending of the movie.
No matter what decision Miller made, the outcome would be disastrous. The director had been imagining his dream project for over a decade and a half, and the head of the studio was about to blow a massive hole through it.
But this was just another catastrophe on a project that was beset with them. Fury Road was one of the most elaborate and difficult shoots in Hollywood history, and the making of the movie stretched over two decades and three studios. Still, over years of countless obstacles that would have prompted almost any other artist to give up, Miller persevered. He could not quit until he had told this story, and what he fought for is now considered by many to be a masterpiece and the finest action movie ever made.
Over several interviews with Miller, I had to ask: How did he keep the faith for so many years when everything was stacked against the making of this film?
âThe real answer is you have no choice,â he said bluntly. âI just had to keep going.â Then, as if he were a character from his own movie, Miller added, âYou canât surrender.â
Though the scope of Fury Road is massive, the filmâs postapocalyptic plot is boiled down to its barest essence: Nearly the entire movie is told on the run as drifter Max Rockatansky (Hardy) joins forces with the determined driver Furiosa (Theron) to spirit five young sex slaves to safety. Along the way, they are aided by the zealous turncoat Nux (Nicholas Hoult) and pursued across the desert by a staggering armada of vehicles commanded by the warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who wants to reclaim his harem of âWivesâ and murder his rogue lieutenant Furiosa for freeing the young women in the first place.
But while Fury Road initially appears to be a simple car chase stretched to feature length, there is plenty going on underneath the hood, and the subjects that Miller smuggled into all that spectacle were subversive and unexpectedly powerful: How often do you see an action movie that tackles up-to-the-minute issues like environmental collapse, female empowerment, and resource hoarding by the rich? The world here is so detailed and incredibly realized that it resonates well beyond the borders of the frame. A film like Fury Road isnât just one of a kindâin this era of increasingly bland superhero movies, itâs the sort of film that could probably never be made again.
Many thought Miller couldnât pull it off, and some of those doubters were even working on the movie. To be fair, by the time Fury Road hit theaters in 2015, Miller was seventy years old and had not directed a live-action film in seventeen years. It had been even longerâthree tumultuous decadesâsince the world had seen a new Mad Max movie, and original series star Mel Gibson became professionally toxic in the interim, requiring a thorough rethink of what Miller had in mind.
And what exactly Miller had in that prodigious mind remained the point of some contention. The confusingly piecemeal way he filmed Fury Road could frustrate his actors, who felt adrift and often clashed with Miller and each other. During the better part of a year spent in the vast, remote desert of Namibiaâsurrounded by sandstorms, shrieking stuntmen, and insane vehicular mayhemâthere was such an emphasis on making this fantasy world feel real that the conflict of the characters even seeped into the actual lives of the cast and crew. You either had faith in Millerâs mad vision or you struggled.
Almost every movie is hard to make, but few movies have a making-of story as wild, long, or difficult as Fury Road, and absolutely none of them turned out as influential and awe-inspiring. Thereâs no doubt now that the movie is an all-time classic, but an important question still remains: Did Fury Road become great despite being forged in fire, or because of it?
Chapter 1
Eyewitness Accounts of Those Who Survived
In almost every possible way, Mad Max: Fury Road is a movie that should not exist.
Itâs the fourth film in a long-running franchise . . . yet it was hailed by critics as one of the most original movies ever made. Itâs a big-studio action movie . . . yet it was nominated for Best Picture and won several Oscars.
And while it was a major hit when it was released in 2015, earning $375 million worldwide, Fury Road has only become bigger in the years since: At the end of the 2010s, nearly every major publicationâincluding the New York Times, USA Today, Rolling Stone, and the Los Angeles Timesânamed it one of the best films of the decade.
With its iconic characters, exhilarating stunt sequences, and incredible ingenuity, itâs only natural to wonder how this modern classic was made. Even A-list auteurs canât figure Fury Road out: Parasite director Bong Joon Ho has said that the sheer scale of the movie brings him to tears, while Steven Soderbergh put it more bluntly. âI donât understand how theyâre not still shooting that film,â Soderbergh once said, âand I donât understand how hundreds of people arenât dead.â
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Gina Prince-Bythewood (director, The Old Guard) You watch Fury Road, and youâre really pushed back in your seat. Even knowing all the tricks that directors use, you still canât figure out how he did it.
Tom Hardy (âMaxâ) Itâs Technicolor, surreal, and over-the-top with all these car crashes that are actually happening. Itâs magic. I havenât ever seen anything like it.
Edgar Wright (director, Last Night in Soho) Itâs an engine of pure cinema.
Patty Jenkins (director, Wonder Woman) How often do you see something so mind-blowing? First of all, Georgeâs taste is unparalleledâheâs got the edgiest, most unbelievable eye. And this visceral, gripping vitality that comes out of the action is stunning.
Jen Yamato (journalist, Los Angeles Times) It makes me feel more alive just watching it, and that feeling has never gone away as Iâve watched it over and over and over again.
Patton Oswalt (actor) I donât have words for itâit should just be âholy fucking shit.â
Nia DaCosta (director, Candyman) The audacity of it all! Thatâs the sort of thing that initially got me into directingâthe fact that you could literally do anythingâand what George did is to say, âYes, Iâm going to go to the desert in Namibia to make this completely tonally wackadoo movie.â And somehow it fucking works. I never would have been able to pull this movie off. It sounds like hell!
George Miller (director) Every day was physically demanding. There were no soft days. It was very noisy, very dusty, and very arduous.
Robyn Glaser (second assistant director, action unit) No one can say theyâve worked on a movie like Mad Max.
Charlize Theron (âFuriosaâ) Hands down, this is the hardest thing Iâve ever done.
Jasin Boland (still photographer) I think it was our Apocalypse Now, I really do.
Dane Hallett (key prop maker) Youâre not really allowed to make those movies anymore. Youâre not allowed to commit to this fucking insanity and get away with it. The studios are too scared.
Sean Genders (senior prosthetic artist) We call it the most expensive independent film ever made.
Doug Mitchell (producer) It was destined, one day, to be what it is today. Itâs now in the library of films, but there were umpteen times where it was irrelevant: âNah, thatâs never going to happen.â
Tom Hardy Looking back now, itâs impossible to put into words what being a part of it meant to me. It left me irrevocably changed.
Riley Keough (âCapableâ) It was one of the wildest, most intense experiences of my lifeâto this day. Every moment is so emotional to me.
A...