Watching Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy share the same screen in a Mad Max film is something that we’d all love to see, even though it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of sense. Unfortunately, for that exact reason, George Miller admitted that the chances of it happening are very, very remote. Basically, he said it’s definitely not going to happen.
Miller, who wrote and directed all four instalments of the Mad Max franchise, and is currently working on the fifth, explained that even though the mere thought of seeing Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy ripping up the screen together as Mad Maxes is enough to turn fully grown men into the equivalent of screaming teenage One Direction fans, it just wouldn’t be worth it. The Australian filmmaker made this admission during his recent chat with Deadline over the success of Mad Max: Fury Road. He rather rightfully explained:
If Mel, who is Max in a lot of people’s memories, appeared in the next movie, it would pull audiences out of the movie for a bit, and we worked so hard to keep people immersed in the movie as much as possible. It would be like, I don’t know, seeing Roger Moore appearing in a Daniel Craig James Bond movie. It would be fun, but it would also pull you out of the experience of the movie.
Why does George Miller have to think about about these things so logically? Sure, it would be just plain wrong if Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy appeared in the same Mad Max film together. In fact, if they shot and used such a collaboration, it would instantly ruin the rest of the movie. But it would also be so gosh darn right in so many ways, too.
Of course, the only way that we’ll actually see Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy in a new Mad Max film together is if a new Mad Max film is actually greenlit by Warner Bros. And there was some concern on that front earlier in the year as Mad Max: Fury Road, despite its absolutely stellar reviews, crawled its way to its ultimately satisfactory, but hardly scintillating box office total of $374.7 million (against a $150 million budget), the word on the wire is that a sequel is currently in development.
That should mean that it will be ready by ... oh, I don’t know, around 2045. You see what I did there? It’s funny because Mad Max: Fury Road took, like, 30 years to be released. It was still totally worth it, though.
