Months out from its already massively-delayed planned start date, George Miller‘s “Mad Max: Fury Road” still faces the same issues that plagued the production last year with the planned shooting location of Broken Hill in Australia now set to be canned as the typically dry and barren town “remains too green for filming” Miller’s post-apocalyptic world and is unlikely to be ready for pre-production in October.
“The ‘Mad Max’ landscape looked like Wales,” Miller told SMH. “There was a carpet of flowers on the location we were shooting on. There’s no way it’s going to brown off. Not only that, we wanted to shoot some of the shots on Lake Eyre but now it’s full of pelicans.” Not exactly the kind of scenery where our protagonist, Max Rockatansky, does his best work.
It’s a massive blow to the production which was already delayed until January with hopes that the conditions in Broken Hill would improve. Pre-production work had already started with reports that Miller and co. “had built a road in the desert and had stored 150 vehicles for the film.” No word yet on any contingency plans from Miller, however, new locations are reportedly being eyed as replacements with some sources already noting Namibia, where lensing on the 2003 Mel Gibson-led sequel was originally set to shoot before the Iraq War halted development, as a potential replacement with others referencing Morocco, Chile and China.
What will this mean for the cast? We’ll probably have to wait and see but two players who are likely to stick around is Tom Hardy, attached to take on the titular role made famous by Gibson, and Charlize Theron, who’s playing some sort of amputee warrior and has been rumored to be the lead of a second sequel subtitled ‘Furiosa.’ Hugh Keays-Byrne, Nicolas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz and Adelaide Clemens were also attached in supporting roles as was Teresa Palmer who has since revealed she’s no longer involved.
As was the case in March, Miller is still busy with post-production on “Happy Feet 2” which is aiming for a Thanksgiving release. Plans to shoot ‘Mad Max’ in January could still work, we guess, if a resolution is found quickly to cater for the apparently extensive pre-production, but the clock is definitely ticking.