During the noisy, gasoline stenched build up to the release of "Mad Max: Fury Road" earlier this year, one curious tidbit that surfaced was that George Miller had an alternate, black-and-white cut of the film in the can. And even more, that it would be included in the home video release.
"We spent a lot of time in DI (digital intermediate), and we had a very fine colorist, Eric Whipp. One thing I’ve noticed is that the default position for everyone is to de-saturate post-apocalyptic movies. There’s only two ways to go, make them black and white — the best version of this movie is black and white, but people reserve that for art movies now. The other version is to really go all-out on the color," Miller told Slashfilm in May. "The usual teal and orange thing? That’s all the colors we had to work with. The desert’s orange and the sky is teal, and we either could de-saturate it, or crank it up, to differentiate the movie. Plus, it can get really tiring watching this dull, de-saturated color, unless you go all the way out and make it black and white."
The site added that Miller had told them he "demanded" Warner Bros. release the black and white cut on the Blu-ray, with an option to just hear the isolated score as the only sound in the film. However, it would appear those plans have been scuttled.
READ MORE: Charlez Theron Suggests She Might Not Return As Furiosa After ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
Details of the U.K. release of "Mad Max: Fury Road" have been revealed on Blu-ray.com, and while there are a lot of featurettes and some deleted scenes, there is no mention of an alternate cut. Here’s what you’ll find on the disc:
Maximum Fury: Filming Fury Road Featurette
Mad Max: Fury on Four Wheels Featurette
The Road Warriors: Max and Furiosa Featurette
The Tools of the Wasteland Featurette
The Five Wives: So Shiny, So Chrome Featurette
Fury Road: Crash & Smash Featurette
Deleted Scenes
And if you’re thinking that this black and white cut is a mythological wonder, it indeed does exist, with Will McRabb tweeting last month he had seen it screened on the Warner Bros. lot. So, maybe it’s a hidden Easter Egg on the disc? Or perhaps the studio is banking it for an eventual double dip home video release when an inevitable sequel is made. And in the most unlikely scenario, maybe the U.S. release will be version that includes the cut. But for now, it seems it also exists in the hands of WB and George Miller. Anyway, imagine what it might be like with this black and white version of the trailer made by Renn Brown.
I was lucky enough to see GEORGE MILLER’S B&W version of #FuryRoad at WB’s this morning.
John Ford on Acid Historic! pic.twitter.com/PVOoFA1TKW
— WILL McCRABB (@mccrabb_will) June 3, 2015
