Mad Max: Fury Road was the summer’s diamond in the rough. Despite its title, the film featured a dynamite performance from Charlize Theron, it earned more than $374.7 million worldwide for Warner Bros., and there’s been a great deal of Oscar talk. Director George Miller has been teasing plans for a potential sequel for some time, and while he’s trying to keep his plans close to the vest, he has now revealed a few new tidbits.

Miller already told press that he worked up additional scripts for Mad Max continuations, one of which he dubbed Wasteland, earlier this year. However, when the filmmaker spoke with Deadline, he said this is merely a working title for the project, and the final version would likely have a different name.

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Image via Warner Bros.

The more I speculate about what’s happening, the more I try to avoid spoilers this far out, and also I find myself talking around in circles. So the best thing I can say is that we’re definitely in discussion about making more of these, but the timing of it, I’m really not sure. Probably won’t be called Wasteland. I can say that. It was just the working title we gave it.

While Theron had said she hasn’t heard anything about returning for a sequel -- even though she was a major reason behind the success of Fury Road -- it’s still early in the process, and things could change. That said, Tom Hardy revealed earlier this year in a feature for Esquire that he is signed on to play Max in multiple films. Miller confirmed to Deadline that “we’ll definitely see more Tom Hardy.” As for who definitely won’t be in the sequel, that would be Mel Gibson. The filmmaker continued his conversation with the trade by explaining an appearance from Gibson, the original Max, would take the audience out of the story at hand.


These statements from Miller echoed what he’s said in the past. He mentioned that, over the course of the tumultuous development process, he developed two scripts. While he’s in talks with the studio, he’s not sure which of them will end up getting made. He also said he wanted to make “a small film without special effects” before he returns to the wasteland once more. Until then, we do have the awards race to keep us preoccupied. Who knows? Perhaps if Fury Road earns nominations or even wins, Warner Bros. will want to expedite the sequel development.

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Image via Warner Bros.