Director George Miller, he of the operatic camera movements and saturated color palette, revealed in an interview with the BBC's TopGear that he has two more Mad Max scripts in development. Though details are scant, the films apparently will delve into the back stories of characters from this summer's thoughtful blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road, which stars Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky, Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa, and Nicholas Hoult as Nux.
The scripts also unearth details about the cars and trucks that, despite a lack of dialogue, literally and figuratively chew up more of the film's post-apocalyptic scenery than the actors themselves. "[I]n this process, we had dug down deep into the backstory, not only of the characters, but of every vehicle. How the steering wheels became religious artifacts and things like that," Miller told TopGear.
But while Miller says he is actively in talks with Warner Bros. to determine when and how these new installments of the Mad Max franchise will be put into production, don't expect the Fury Road sequels to hit theaters immediately. For one thing, Fury Road took more than a decade to reach production—and more than eight months of shooting time in the desert. And for another: Miller, who also directed Babe and Happy Feet, likes to alternate professionally between action and, well, cute stuff.
And before diving back into dystopia, Miller says, “I want to do a small film without special effects before I do any of that, just to do it quickly." We can see it now: Happy Feet: Beyond Thunderdome. Two cute little penguins enter...