14 DAY TRIAL // It’s been 30 years since Mel Gibson starred as Mad Max Rockatansky in the third “Mad Max” movie, “Beyond Thunderdome,” and he’s totally cool with Tom Hardy taking over from him, in the upcoming “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
The film brings back writer / director George Miller and is meant not as a reboot of the original trilogy but a continuation, an expansion of the universe from the classic film franchise. Hardy has previously admitted he found the task of taking over from Gibson “daunting” and even admitted to failing to impress him. He probably had no reason to worry.
Mel and Tom bro out at movie premiere
As you can see in the third video available below, Hardy reached out and requested a meeting with Gibson, because, he says, it only seemed “fair” to him. For millions of fans, including Hardy himself, Mel Gibson will always be Mad Max, so it was like he needed his approval before he got to work.
In another interview, Hardy admitted that Gibson wasn’t that impressed to hear that he would be taking over in the iconic role, but he did wish him good luck. In this one, Tom says he made the older actor one of his bracelets, or as he calls them, bro-lets.
Even though Hardy has been throwing Mel Gibson’s name around a lot in recent weeks, it was still surprising to see him on the red carpet, at the LA premiere of the film, held at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
Nicholas Hoult and Zoe Kravitz, both of whom appear in the film, didn’t even know he was booked to appear.
The first two videos below are from the premiere. Despite what Hardy said, it seems like Gibson took quite a liking to him: the two posed for pictures alone and with director George Miller, and they seemed to be having a blast.
Trouble on set, a difficult shoot
“Mad Max: Fury Road” was initially scheduled for a 2013 release, but the project turned out to be a very difficult one to complete.
Shooting extended beyond the schedule and the budget blew up, and there was even talk of tensions between studio bosses and Miller, who required more time to bring his vision to the big screen.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, tensions also ran high between the film’s two leads, Hardy and Charlize Theron, and between them separately and Miller. The studio and everyone else involved denied the reports at first, but they owned up to them more recently: yes, they fought and they had their creative differences, but they were professionals and made it work.
In the end, they might not walk away from this as friends, but they have nothing but respect for one another.
