Mad Max: Fury Road director
George Miller recently sat with
The Hollywood Reporter on their ongoing interview series entitled,
The Hollywood Masters. As you know, George Miller was set to direct a
Justice League film back in 2009 titled,
Justice League: Mortal. As time went by, problems arose, and the film was eventually scrapped. We've heard a lot of different people speak about what we could have had, however, during this new interview, George Miller provided one of the best explanations for the film's cancellation yet. Check out his full thoughts below.
"Justice League was the main one. That was, oh, seven years ago, I think. And there was a really great script. And Warners said, “Let's do it. Let's do a Justice League.” I really was attracted to it. But there was a writers strike looming. We had to cast it very quickly, which we did with Warner's casting people. And we cast it really quickly and we mounted it very quickly. And it depended on a start date and it depended on some basic rebate legislation that had just got through a new Australian government. But it was just too big a decision for them to make in the time. And that fell through and the whole film fell through. We almost got there. And it wasn't to be. But that happens a lot, where films line up and the stars look like they're aligning and they didn't."
Even though a documentary about the debunked
Justice League film is set to release later this year with the approval of the studio, Miller also revealed that the same thing happened to
Mad Max: Fury Road three times before it was green-lit! Speaking of
Fury Road, there were over 3,500 storyboards for the film! The
Happy Feet director spoke on that, and revealed that it's a certain point where you have to let the storyboards go.
"The 3,500 storyboards are a fantastic document with which to produce a film that has very little dialogue, where everything is spatial. Where that vehicle is, where that character is, and so on, and what the intention of the shot is. But getting out there in the reality, you're not looking at the storyboards, you're looking at what's in front of you. What's in the camera lens as you're setting up the shot? So you have to let the storyboards go. It’s surprising that they are the things that free you to respond to what's in front of you. And you're always making many mid-course corrections in everything you do, when you're making a movie. So it's not like throwing out the storyboards; this is better."
Miller has worked on a lot of film in his career. These include
Mad Max (1979),
Happy Feet,
The Witches of Eastwick,
Babe, and his recent blockbusters. He won an Oscar for 'Best Animated Feature Film of the Year' (
Happy Feet), and
Mad Max: Fury Road was nominated for an Oscar, and a Golden Globe. What's one thing (out of many) that's makes Miller so successful? He took the time to speak on that, and revealed the things he finds most interesting.
"It’s interesting, you finish shooting the movie, and then you go through the cutting process where you're confronted with all the things that you've done wrong and all the problems you have to solve, whether from the writing or the production. And then it becomes something else. So that’s an interesting puzzle. I love the cutting room. I love working with the composers, too, because that’s another thing — because when you're looking at the score of a movie, often you're dealing with the same sort of sub-textural themes that you were talking about when you actually started a project."
Back to
Mad Max, Miller spoke on the sequel, and revealed that he and Nick Lathouris wrote two other stories.
"Because this got delayed so often, and we dug down deep into the backstory, Nick Lathouris and I have written two other stories. One is a full script." He then added, and revealed that the
Mad Max: Fury Road sequel doesn't yet have a title.
"It doesn’t have a title. And one of them we talked about in great detail and he wrote as a novella." That means the alleged "Wasteland" title isn't the final title after all. What's next for the 70-year old director? He hopes for something easy.
"Something small and quick, I hope. I've joked Mad Max: Fury Lane."
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