Trivia / Mad Max: Fury Road

---

• Acclaimed Flop: A minor case, as even if its box office take was comparable to the glowing reviews ($415 million costing $154.6–185.1 million), the heavy advertisement cost made Warner Bros lose 20-40 million. However, between big home video sales to offset the losses and the overall praise, this didn't stop the franchise at all, with the studio greenlighting Miller's plans for a Furiosa origin movie, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • The scepter that Joe carries wasn't a prop created for the production, it was an actual artifact belonging to Hugh Keays-Byrne that was used because it fit in perfectly.
  • Charlize Theron came up with the idea to shave her head for the film. Her character was originally envisioned as having longer hair and a more Stripperiffic, Barbarella-inspired outfit, but she and the costume designer thought it impractical, from both a production standpoint (the shoot was notoriously grueling) and a character one (long hair would've gotten Furiosa accidentally scalped given all the machinery she worked around).
• Actor Leaves, Character Dies: Megan Gale's character, Valkyrie, was originally supposed to live, but she got pregnant during production and had to leave the project early, so George Miller decided to kill her character off.
• Approval of God:
  • George Miller approved of the Alternative Foreign Theme Song "Out of Control" by Man With a Mission.
  • Mel Gibson loved the film and Tom Hardy's Max.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Why the 78-year old Melissa Jaffer took on the role of an elderly woman warrior in Fury Road:
  Jaffer: When this role came along, I thought well, I won't get another chance like this before I die, and that's why I took it. It was absolutely wonderful.
• California Doubling: Given Australia was going through rainy seasons that don't fit the Desert Punk setting, the movie wound up filmed in Namibia (though CG later made the environment as close to the Outback as possible).
• Career Resurrection: Charlize Theron was in a creative slump after turning in Academy Award-winning (Monster) or nominated (North Country) performances, starting with the infamous flop Æon Flux. While she recovered some critical esteem four years before this film with her performance in the 2011 comedy-drama Young Adult, it was only with the success of Mad Max: Fury Road (after starring in a handful of forgettable blockbusters) that Theron truly became a recognizable screen presence again.
• Cast the Expert: As per George Miller's word, the Rock Riders were played by world-class motocross riders.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, Max is voiced by actor/dancer AKIRA, best known as one of the singers for the boy bands Exile and Exile The Second.
• Completely Different Title: The Latin American Spanish title is "Mad Max: Furia en el Camino". "Fury Road" would actually translate as "Camino de Furia", the Latin American title instead is "Fury on the Road" (or more laconically, "Road Rage").
• Descended Creator: John Iles, a former SAS soldier appointed by Miller to lead a security team during the production to discourage on-set theft, also played Ace. (This, of course, meant that Iles could also do all his own stunts.)
• Disabled Character, Disabled Actor: Quentin Kenihan, the actor who played Corpus Colossus, had osteogenesis imperfecta. No prosthetics, puppets or special effects were used; the only alterations to Mr. Kenihan were makeup. The heart surgery scars are real.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Charlize Theron shaved her head for the role of Furiosa and as a result had to wear a wig for her role in A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014).
• Dueling Dubs: There's two Japanese dubs: One for the original theatrical and video release and another one for use for a Japanese cable network named "The Cinema", which deals on non-Japanese films and each version had their own voice cast, with the sole exception of Takako Honda, who voice Furiosa in both dubs.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • Perhaps unintentional, but Tom Hardy admitted that he had a sour attitude towards George Miller throughout the production of the film. This ultimately worked in favor of Max's personality.
  • The Doof Warrior was suspended on a truck and not only did his guitar function, it really was a flamethrower.
  • Hardy and Charlize Theron were also apparently annoyed by each other at first, but much like their characters developed a genuine (if grudging) respect for each other over the course of the film. Theron later dismissed the idea that they still disliked each other, and chalked it up to being frustrated with the filming conditions and taking it out on each other.
  • The fight between Max and Furiosa? If they seemed particularly...eager to beat each other to a pulp, that wasn't entirely acting. It was partially them venting their annoyance at each other. Rosie Huntington-Whitley even compared it to "standing back [with the Wives] and letting Mom and Dad sort things out."
  • Due to the film running on practical effects with real cars and real explosions, Tom Hoult has stated that during chase scenes most of the actors and stunt doubles really are hopped up on adrenaline, due to feeling the roar of the engine around them.
  • The Wives actresses have stated that when they arrived in Namibia, they were given a few weeks to get to know each other before filming, which really helped since they were five strangers playing characters who've known each other their whole lives.
  • Also, Fury Road was filmed in the vast Nambian desert with only a sleepy little village for miles around, so any quiet scene where the characters seem a little bored in the vast desert reflects how the actors might have felt between filming. The Wives actresses and Nicholas Hoult also bonded on-set due to mutual boredom between months of filming^note since they're all young model-turned-actors from big cities with an active nightlife, now out of their element, so scenes where the Wives and Nux seemed to have formed their own little family reflected the actors' relationships with each other.
• Executive Meddling: In the original film, the character Valkyrie is first introduced trapped in a cage and nude. In some international versions, the scene was changed where she is shown wearing underwear. This was possibly done to avoid the film getting a higher age rating in some countries, and allows the scene to remain intact on American television airings.
  • As noted under Troubled Production, production was initially cut short without filming crucial scenes at the beginning and end of the film. After a shake-up at Warner Bros., however, additional filming was ordered and these scenes were eventually finished almost a year later.
• Fake Nationality: Lots of them. Most of the cast is implied to be Australian, but...
  • Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, and Rosie Huntington-Whitely are British.
  • Riley Keough and Zoë Kravitz are American.
  • Charlize Theron was born in South Africa, and currently resides in the US.
  • Inversion: Josh Helman plays Slit with a weird Amero-Canadian accent, even though he's from Adelaide.
• The Foreign Subtitle: The film is called Mad Max: Death Road of Anger in Japan.
• He Also Did: The subject of a brief meme was the fact that this was George Miller's first live-action drama since Lorenzo's Oil, which was released in 1992 to meager profit before doing more lighthearted family fare, his last live-live action film overall having been Babe: Pig in the City in 1998. His previous film up to this point had been, of all things, the second Happy Feet film, but one can hardly advertise a gritty action movie with "From the director of Happy Feet and Babe." Instead, the ads went with the vague-but-flattering "From mastermind George Miller".
• Hostility on the Set: As mentioned below under Troubled Production, Charlize Theron claimed that Tom Hardy and George Miller "went at it". Hardy would later apologize to Miller at the film's Cannes premiere after seeing the final result.
  • Charlize and Tom had a chilly relationship during the film - and, as both noted, it made the on-screen distrust and silence work better.
• Inspiration for the Work: To what degree is up for debate, but artist Brendan McCarthy (best known for his work on Judge Dredd) was a huge fan of the original Mad Max movies and when working on the CGI show ReBoot they did a Mad Max spoof (episode "Bad Bob") that, due to the short episode length, was primarily one long Chase Scene centered on a customized semi. McCarthy was able to develop a friendship with George Miller and even pointed out the work they did on that episode, and McCarthy helped write and storyboard much of what became Fury Road.
• No Stunt Double: The older actresses playing the Vuvalini did their own stunts.
• The Other Darrin: Max, played by Mel Gibson for the first three movies, is now played by Tom Hardy. Kind of ironic, since a lot of people thought Hardy's portrayal of Bane was very much reminiscent of Lord Humungous. That said, George Miller has implied that he's not the exact same guy.
• The Other Marty: Teresa Palmer was originally cast but due to delays of the production, she dropped out and was replaced by Abbey Lee.
• Production Posse: Hugh Keays-Byrne previously played the Toecutter in the first film, but both he and Megan Gale (the Valkyrie) were part of the cast assembled for George Miller's 2008 Justice League film, as the Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman. It ended up in Development Hell and fully dead, but Miller brought them back for Fury Road.
• Promoted Fanboy: Nicholas Hoult was a big fan of the original Mad Max trilogy before getting to portray Nux in this movie.
• Reality Subtext:
  • Courtney Eaton was in her mid-teens during filming and had much less film experience than the rest of the cast, so she ended up taking on the baby sister role among the actors in Real Life, too. In addition, she became close friends with Abby Lee, which is most likely why Cheedo and the Dag are always holding each other.
  • The trailer for the movie cites real life water rights activists Maude Barlow and Vandana Shiva. Also, given Nestlé's infamy for extracting water even in drought-stricken areas, it's a meme to compare the company and its CEO with Immortan Joe.
• The Red Stapler: Wilton Silver Color Mist — a food-safe chrome spray intended for cake decoration — ended up seeing a spike in sales (as well as parody reviews from "War Boys") due to its resemblance to the infamous chrome spray used by the War Boys in the movie before their suicide attacks (except not poisonous or euphoric, just yucky-tasting when sprayed straight into the mouth). Goggles like Nux's were even among the "frequently bought with" items◊. Wilton has since embraced its newfound legacy and its Amazon page includes a tongue-in-cheek FAQ that references the movie.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron's respective stunt doubles, Dane Grant and Dayna Porter, fell in love during production and got married, in an ironic contrast to how the actors they were doubling didn't get along.
  • Stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen started a relationship with Capable performer Riley Keough, and married her when the movie was released.
• Saved from Development Hell: George Miller came up with the idea for a fourth film to be "almost a continuous chase" in 1987, although financial difficulties meant that it languished until 1998, when the idea hit Miller again. The film was set to shoot in 2001 through 20th Century Fox, but was postponed because of the September 11 attacks. The film was given the green light to begin filming in the Australian desert in May 2003 with a budget of $100 million, but the location was ruined by rainfall. It then entered a hiatus in light of security concerns related to its Namibian shoot because of tightened travel and shipping restrictions at the onset of the Iraq War. In 2009, it was announced that location scouting and principal photography had begun in Broken Hill, New South Wales and the film was now being made at Warner Bros.. In November 2011, filming was moved from Broken Hill back to Namibia, after unexpected heavy rains caused wildflowers to grow in the desert of Broken Hill. Principal photography began in July 2012, re-shoots took place in 2013 and the film was finally released in 2015.
• Sequel Gap: The film was released in 2015, thirty years after Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
• Sleeper Hit: An interesting case. Due to many factors, including being a rather infamous case of both Development Hell and Troubled Production, Fury Road was expected by many to be just another 80's revival that would fade from memory soon after release, even with its original director back at the helm. From a box office standpoint, it wasn't exceptionally successful (in fact, it barely broke even), yet at the same time it made more money than any other film in the series, even adjusting for inflation. From a critical standpoint, on the other hand, it ended up the single most critically acclaimed film of 2015, topping more Top 10 lists than any other film and garnering numerous awards that were considered untouchable by summer action blockbusters, including Best Picture and Director nominations from the Academy (as well as 6 Oscars, the most that ceremony).
• Streisand Effect: An article in the infamous woman-hating blog "Return Of Kings"^note The site is also known for claiming rape shouldn't be illegal on private property, for instance called for a boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road, accusing it of being "feminist propaganda" and that the filmmakers "would destroy a classic of American culture", implying they were newcomers to the series. Mad Max is, of course, Australian and proud of it, and the film is written and directed by the original creator. This call to boycott had a huge impact in the media, mainly to make fun of how stupid that idea was. The end result was to draw attention to the film as a feminist masterpiece in quarters that may not otherwise have noticed it, and draw attention to the website as a hate site, which probably had something to do with its "voluntary hiatus" some time later (along with being officially listed as a hate group by the SPLC).
• Throw It In!:
  • Behind the scenes example. Over 150 cars were built for the film, of which all but about 15 were destroyed. The Bullet Farmer’s tracked car was apparently not destroyed during filming, but is known to definitely have been crushed, apparently just because the crew hated it that much. It is the only "hero" car to meet that fate. ^note The War Rig that was flipped and the two monster trucks that were turned into Rictus' Bigfoot were stripped to their chassis and returned to their original owners. The remaining "hero" vehicles were preserved.
  • Another Throw It Out moment came earlier, when the “Boneyard Mongrel” car was left behind when production moved to Namibia due to how miserable it was to work with.
  • A war buggy built from an Austin Mini was used sparingly during filming due to being built improperly and being miserable to use.
  • Slit dangling from the Razor Cola was improvised by the actor.
• Troubled Production: This article by Kyle Buchanan for The New York Times lays it all out in gritty detail.
  • Director George Miller decided to make a fourth Mad Max movie in 1998 when an idea popped into his head: what if he did it as one long Chase Scene? A month later, he called producer Doug Mitchell, and the wheels started turning. Even at this early stage, Charlize Theron was being talked about as a potential female lead, along with Uma Thurman. Miller originally wanted to film in his homeland of Australia in 2001, but due to the 9/11 terror attacks, it fell into Development Hell, and he wound up making Happy Feet instead.
  • By the time production got moving again, Mel Gibson, the original star, had become a Hollywood pariah, forcing them to recast the part with Tom Hardy.
  • Fury Road was once again set to film around late 2010 in the traditional setting of Broken Hill, Australia, but due to once-in-a-century heavy rainfall transforming the desert landscape into a lush meadow of flowers, the start of production was pushed back a year and a half and had to be moved to Namibia. This forced a huge extra cost: the vehicles had to be transported by ship all the way to Africa.
  • Production finally commenced in July 2012, and the harsh Namibian desert conditions took a major toll on the cast and crew. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley described the weather as either "boiling hot, freezing cold, or dust storms", and Riley Keough got hypothermia one day due to the combination of her skimpy outfit and the cold weather. Halfway through production, they took a week off just to give everyone a much-needed break. Theron, who grew up in neighboring South Africa, was the only one who had no problem with the conditions.
  • Theron and Hardy did not get along during filming, with Hardy's Method Acting very much bothering Theron. She and Zoë Kravitz would also later claim that Hardy and Miller fought frequently while she was also struggling to handle Miller's visual-focused direction.
  • Miller had the film envision in his head but had trouble communicating it with the cast, with many people not knowing what they were shooting at any given point with regards to the minimalist script. Other cast members said that Miller visibly deteriorated and lost a lot of weight over the course of the six-month production, and that by the end, he was "shattered"; he said that the prospect of finally finishing his film was the only thing that kept him going. Hardy would later apologize to Miller at the film's Cannes premiere, while Theron would describe her memories of production as a mix of joy at what they accomplished and trauma at what it took to get there.
  • Amid claims of the film going overbudget and behind schedule, Warner Bros. sent studio head Jeff Robinov to check up on production. He was so horrified by what he saw that he sent producer Denise Di Novi to supervise production, telling them that they had until December 8 to get the film finished. When that date rolled around, they were forced to go into post-production without any of the scenes set in the Citadel, and the editors spent a year trying to figure out how to cut together the film without its intended opening or closing scenes.
  • Fortunately, it all worked out in the end. A shake-up at Warner Bros. saw Robinov driven out as studio head and replaced with Kevin Tsujihara, who reassembled the cast and crew in Australia for a month to shoot the Citadel scenes and finally finish the film the way it was written. Tsujihara also pushed back when the studio demanded the film be cut down to less than 100 minutes.
• What Could Have Been: Mostly averted; overall the movie matches the original 1998 plans and concept art very closely, but some things were changed:
  • Immortan Joe's original appearance was very different.◊
  • According to the art book, it looks like Rictus Erectus was initially◊ going to be the People Eater's dragon rather than Joe's. His name was a lot more literal too.
  • In early stages of the script, Immortan Joe's harem was going to be huge and feature several wives instead of just five.
  • The film was originally going to be shot in 3D but for reasons unknown (possibly because of the troubles of using a 3D rig), it was converted in post-production. It was shot and framed for the format, however, and a Blu-Ray 3D became available.
  • Mel Gibson was originally supposed to return as older Max, but the film was in Development Hell for so long that Gibson eventually decided not to do it (his notorious anti-Semitic streak a decade prior probably didn't do him any favors). He did introduce the film at the Golden Globes, though.
  • The studio and George Miller at one point toyed with aiming for a PG-13 release, which is a reason why most of the film until the climax has Bloodless Carnage and the nude bait sequence also had an alternate, clothed shot.
  • Jeremy Renner campaigned for the role of Mad Max. At one point the film's long development, Michael Biehn was considered for the role of Max Rockatansky, as were Michael Fassbender, Armie Hammer, Joel Kinnaman, Channing Tatum and Heath Ledger, before his untimely death in 2008. Sam Worthington stated that, like Eric Bana, he has never been approached for the role of Mad Max, despite widespread rumors that circulated the web following the film's announcement.
  • Gal Gadot was considered for Furiosa.
• Word of God: Years after the film's release, George Miller stated he thought there was a 50/50 chance Furiosa would be corrupted by power and become just as bad a tyrant as Immortan Joe.
• You Look Familiar: Hugh Keays-Byrne (Immortan Joe) also played the Big Bad Toecutter in Mad Max.

---