Just before “Mad Max: Fury Road” was released a decade ago, hopes were high for the franchise’s future. Creator George Miller and co-writer Brendan McCarthy developed so much material and backstory for the film that the plan was to develop two further projects from it.
Both would serve as prequels to ‘Fury Road’ with the first being what became last year’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” which released to good reviews but grossed only $174.3 million against its budget of $168 million, a box-office bomb that lost the studio $120 million.
The second was “The Wasteland,” a film that would follow the life of Max Rockatansky in the year before ‘Fury Road’. The project was heading into production before “Furiosa” until its progress following a lawsuit between Miller and WB over unpaid money.
At last report earlier this year, the now 80-year-old Miller said he was still interested in making The Wasteland, but hoped to focus on other projects first. Cut to this week and the podcast Mad Max Bible (via World of Reel) is reporting that the project is being reworked into an episodic series.
They say the series essentially revolves around Max doing jobs for people in the Wasteland in order to get parts to build a new Interceptor. “Furiosa” characters like Chumbucket and Scabrous Scrotus are in it, and many of the characters briefly glimpsed in Max’s flashback visions early on in ‘Fury Road’ will be key characters.
In addition, “Nitram” writer Shaun Grant has reportedly been brought in to write the project, which would presumably be a major exclusive for the HBO Max service. Long before ‘Fury Road,’ “The Wasteland” existed as a TV series idea initially decades ago before morphing into other forms including a 2008 failed video game proposal – elements of which ended up in the Avalanche Studios’ published “Mad Max” 2015 video game.
The report also indicates Miller likely wouldn’t direct, only produce, and recasting would likely take place. How accurate this is isn’t clear, but Miller has a long producing-only history with films like “Dead Calm” and “The Year My Voice Broke” along with multiple iconic Australian 1980s mini-series like “Bangkok Hilton,” “The Dismissal,” “The Dirtwater Dynasty” and “Bodyline” which helped launch the careers of actors like Nicole Kidman and Hugo Weaving.
