“From a story point of view, Furiosa was ready fifteen years ago”. Before Fury Road, then.
If George Miller is best known for the saga Mad Maxcreated in 1979, and which returns to the screens this year, with the release of Furiosa, the Australian director has never hidden his attraction to animation. He was inspired by it for the action scenes of Mad Max, which draw a lot from cartoons, but also graphic novels. In 2015, during a press conference in Cannes, Miller explained that he had used 3,500 hand-drawn storyboards as a scenario. In 2006, he even tried his hand at animation, with Happy Feetwhich was followed by a sequel in 2011.
However, the media /Movie tells us that George Miller's filmography could have taken a completely different turn because the possibility of releasing Furiosa in the form of an animated film.
Cannes 2024: Furiosa is a mind-blowing epic, a crazy new chapter in the Mad Max saga
In 2015, Fury Road came out and won six Oscars the following year. If we know that the filming was complicated for Charlize Theron And Tom Hardy, it is less remembered that the production of the film was also a nightmare for its director. In an interview with MTV in 2015 and reported by /MovieMiller says that in 2009, he thought about giving up on this film after a first unsuccessful attempt, and focused on a new project: making an animated film Mad Max prohibited for children under 17 (R-Rated).
“The anime is an opportunity for me to change up a little bit what this technique does because it's ripe for adjustment or drastic changehe said. That's what happens in games and I think it's the same thing in cartoons. There will be a hybrid anime that leans more towards Western sensibilities. [Le cinéaste japonais Akira] Kurosawa managed to bridge the gap between Japanese and Western sensibilities and make landmark films.”
Although this project never came to fruition, we know today that it was in reality the beginnings of Furiosa: a Mad Max saga, which is about to be released in theaters. It's in the columns of Total Film that Doug Mitchellthe producer of the last two episodes of the chrome saga, revealed the production process of one of the most anticipated films of the year:
“From a storyline point of view, Furiosa was ready fifteen years ago. And ever since, the idea has continued to percolate, as things do in George’s brain.”
This first draft was titled “The Peach” and had to be entrusted to the animation director Mahiro Maeda, who, in 2009, worked on the concept art for Miller's project. The Japanese is known for having worked as an animator for Studio Ghibli (Nausicaä, The castle in the Sky), but also for having collaborated with American directors, notably Quentin Tarantino (for the animated sequence of Kill Bill), and the sisters Wachowski (on The Animatrix).
This is what the characters looked like Mad Max seen by Mahiro Maeda:
It is certain that The Peach would not have lacked scope. Yet today, it is indeed a live-action that George Miller, Anya Taylor-Joy And Chris Hemsworth came to present on the Croisette. In France, Furiosa will be released in theaters on May 22.
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