Giant Freakin Robot

This is a day that many of us thought we would never live to see, but George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, his return to the post-apocalyptic world he first created in 1979, has completed principle photography. At times it seemed as if God himself had a personal vendetta against the production. Miller and company faced multiple delays, including severe flooding. After moving from Australia to Namibia, the production quickly fell behind schedule, and a studio exec was sent in to babysit the troubled set as it limped across the finish line.

Yet somehow they made it through, and, according to Twitch, they’re done with filming part of the program. After a grueling six-month battle against fate and the elements, they can move on to other things. There are still numerous things that can go wrong, and until I’m actually in a theater, with the lights going down, I’ll remain skeptical that the world will ever see another Mad Max movie.

Good lord, Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller’s return to his post-apocalyptic roots, can’t catch a break. The film has been delayed at every turn, including a freakish, act-of-God-style flood of the Australian outback (and this was well after plans were derailed by 9/11). When the movie finally, finally began filming in July in Namibia, it looked like they had at last moved beyond the problems. That assumption is proving completely wrong.

Fury Road is slated to wrap up filming in November, and has a budget of between $100 and $125 million. It is also running so far behind, and so much over budget, that Heat Vision reports Warner Bros. is sending producer Denise di Novi (who has done a lot of work with Tim Burton) to Africa to get a handle on things. This move follows hot on the heels of studio head Jeff Robinov’s visit to the set. You can’t help but think that, on his trip, he saw something that did not sit well with him.

It looks like it’s really going to happen. The long-awaited fourth film in the Mad Max franchise is currently in production and more set photos of Mad Max: Fury Road are being leaked to the Internet. I’d like to think director George Miller is intentionally leaking them to prove Mad Max: Fury Road is finally being made.

The photos, which originally popped up on collider reveal new badass post-apocalyptic vehicles, weapons, and costumes from the upcoming re-imagining of the 1979 cult-classic. Mad Max: Fury Road started production on July 9th in Africa after long delays due to flooding in Broken Hill, Australia, the film’s original shooting location.

If you grew up in the 80’s then there was only one movie you associated with the apocalypse, ok there was two, but nobody wants a Damnation Alley reboot so we’ll just say it was Mad Max. After years of effort and rumors and starts and stops it looks like we are finally well on our way to getting another dose of the original post-apocalyptic road warrior in theaters with Tom Hardy playing the titular role and Charlize Theron playing a new character who will no doubt either be an awful person or hideously ugly, don’t ask me why but apparently that’s just her thing. Now Mel Gibson has come out to tell how he feels about the new movie and just what took it so long to get made in the first place.

Even though the original Mad Max has long since dropped the Max and just exemplified the Mad, he has remained working. He may not be the A-lister he once was, but he’s maintained some cred just by the sheer depth of his artistic talent (religious snuff films notwithstanding). Ten years ago, before he started in with the whole alcohol fueled anti-semitic  rants at police thing, he was still a viable action hero and was in talks with Mad Max’s creator and director George Miller to star in a fourth movie. In a recent interview with ComingSoon.net, Gibson tells just what he thinks caused the movie to stall, and no, it wasn’t Jews…