Filming on Mad Max: Fury Road has already been subject to delays.  The six-month $100 million shoot was meant to kick off August 2010 with stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in New South Wales, before the start date was revised to February of next year.  The production has been pushed back again, this time a full year to February 2012.

Even worse, The Australian [via /Film] reports that "the high Australian dollar could ultimately kill the film as its budget grows."  The first delay was for meteorological reasons, but the report doesn't specify the nature of this postponement.  Is an ever-bloating budget to blame?  Hit the jump for a brief recap of what we know about the Mad Max reboot.

The bullet points:

  • The film would shoot for over six months with a $100 million budget.  Star Tom Hardy revised that number to "probably nine months."
  • It was rumored that director George Miller might shoot two films, Mad Max: Fury Road and Mad Max: Furiosa back to back.
  • Hardy (Inception) was cast as the new "Mad" Max Rotansky.
  • Charlize Theron (Hancock) was cast as the new female lead.
  • Nicholas Hoult (Clash of the Titans) will play a character named "Nux."
  • Riley Keough (The Runaways) was likely going to play the "Five Wives," a group of women that Hardy must protect from the bad guys
  • It was recently revealed that Theron's character would be missing an arm by Anabelle Williams, an Olympic swimmer whose left arm ends at the elbow and will play Theron's stunt double.

Here's how Hardy described the film in an interview with Steve:

“It’s a relaunch and revisit to the world. An entire restructuring.  That’s not to say that it’s not picking up or leaving off from the Mad Max you know already, but it’s a nice re-take on the entire world using the same character, depositing him in the same world but bringing him up to date by 30 years.”

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I don't have a particularly strong connection to the series, but I was looking forward to this one.  Especially with Hardy at the lead.  Dude's a star.  Hopefully Miller can find a way to get it in front of cameras by February 2012, Australian dollar be damned.