To celebrate the release of Mad Max: Fury Road, let’s take a look at 12 things you
probably didn’t know about the post-apocalyptic sequel.
Fury Road didn’t start life with a traditional screenplay.
Instead, writer and director George Miller created a visual story with comic book artist
Brendan McCarthy, who, after seeing Mad Max 2 in the 80s, co-created the comic Freakwave,
which he’s described as ‘Mad Max goes surfing’!
With the help of storyboard artists, Peter Pound and Mark Sexton, Miller and McCarthy
created the movie’s visual first draft, a storyboard with 3,500 panels, which covered
the conference room walls of Miller’s studio and helped him film and edit the movie shot-by-shot.
Before production started, George Miller created an online resource about the world of Fury
Road for the movie’s cast and crew.
The secure website included videos of stunt tests, costume fittings, character backstories,
and the histories and hierarchies of each of the movie’s tribes.
In the post-apocalyptic world of Fury Road, everything has to be reused and repurposed.
So, to make sure they got the right look for the movie’s props, the production design
team used real salvage material.
For example, they used soda cans, tyres and inner tubes to make weapons; melted-down old
tankards and trophies to make car accessories; and 350 salvaged cars to part-build and customise
a host of vehicles.
Furiosa’s mechanical arm was designed and built by industrial designer Matt Boug, who
used salvage materials such as spanners, parts of car engines, and a motor from a toy airplane.
For added mobility, a lighter version of the arm was also produced for Charlize Theron
and her stunt double.
A core team of 65 stunt performers brought to life Immortan Joe’s army of War Boys.
To really get into their cultish characters, the stunt performers took part in drama workshops
with actor and Fury Road co-writer Nico Lathouris, as well as doing intense fight training.
George Miller got the idea for the War Boys’ aerial attack team, the Polecats, after seeing
street performers balancing on poles.
Former Cirque du Soleil performer Stephen Bland helped put together a team of gymnasts
to play the Polecats.
Once up in the air, the Polecats got their cues via earpieces and laser pointers on the
vehicles.
High-tensile steel, which is strong but has some flexibility, was used for the poles.
And each 30-foot pole was counterweighted with an engine block at the base, which was
pushed or pulled by the vehicle’s stunt team, allowing the Polecats to glide through
the air.
Australian musician iOTA, who plays the Doof Warrior, wrote and recorded his own war tunes
which he plays on a double-necked electric guitar as the frontman of the crazy band whose
music rallies Immortan Joe’s troops.
To help the band’s Taiko drummers keep their tempo, amid the noise of engines and combat,
the music was piped to them via earpieces.
To get a sense of their personalities, George Miller asked actresses auditioning for Immortan
Joe’s Five Wives to read a scene from any film or TV show except Fury Road.
Choices included a Monty Python scene, which was picked by first-time-actress Abbey Lee.
To prepare to play the Five Wives, Lee and fellow actors Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley
Keough, Zoe Kravitz and Courtney Eaton, spent three weeks in Sydney rehearsing and working
with Fury Road co-writer Nico Lathouris and choreographer Meryl Tankard.
As background for their characters, they also researched violence against women in war zones
with Vagina Monologues playwright, Eve Ensler, who’s worked with female rape victims in
the Congo.
At the peak of filming, there were over 1,700 crew members working on Fury Road, and an
average of 1,000 people on set at any time.
The production’s base camp was the size of three football fields and, during 120 days,
moved six times.
To move gear from one location to the next, they needed five 8 x 8 former German military
transport trucks.
To create Fury Road’s Wasteland, the filmmakers needed a location that was flat, had sand
and canyons, and little vegetation.
Originally, they wanted to return to Broken Hill in the Australian Outback, where they
shot Mad Max 2, but two years of high rainfall meant the area was too green.
However, Namibia in southern Africa had everything they needed, location-wise, including the
coastal city of Swakopmund, which provided the production hub, and the Namib Desert,
which had the range of looks required for the Road War.
Fury Road’s Citadel was actually a series of sets constructed in Namibia, Sydney, and
Cape Town, and its base was built of sand and fake stone.
However, the Citadel’s towers and surrounding views were computer generated.
The rock walls were made using high-res photos taken of Australia’s Blue Mountains, which
were then digitally cut and bent to form the shape of the Citadel.
Australian Motocross Champ and freestyle coach Stephen Gall helped put together a team of
expert freestylers to play the Rock Riders who prowl the canyon.
A series of ramps and rollercoasters were built to aid their movement around the steep
canyon walls.
Filming took place at Namibia’s Swakop River Valley and the size of the canyon was increased
with CGI.
Well, there you have it, 12 things you probably didn't know about Mad Max: Fury Road!
Now, let me know in the comments below, what did you think of the movie?
And what would you like to see happen in a sequel?
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Thanks for watching!
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!