14 DAY TRIAL // The original “Mad Max” movie that came out in 1979 made stars out of Mel Gibson and director George Miller. The two would go on to stage a successful trilogy that would make Gibson a Hollywood star and bring the director a lot of credit.
As the fourth film in the franchise is getting ready to be released in theaters, this begs the question why was Mel Gibson not brought along on this one too? At least a cameo role would have been enough to acknowledge his role in making the Mad Max films.
The Daily Mail claims that Miller had his reasons for not reaching out to Gibson to make the movie. They claim that Miller was left “heartbroken” over Gibson's recent string of scandals and this was the determining factor in choosing a younger cast for his new movie.
What is interesting is that Miller originally wanted to bring Mel on board the fourth movie, and he was even supposed to play Max Rockatansky. But a series of delays meant that Gibson couldn't make the cut, and the production team opted for Tom Hardy, 36, who came in as a replacement for Mel.
Gibson's reputation received its first big blow back in 2006, when she was arrested for drunk driving and he made some anti-Semitic remarks to the officer doing the arrest. Then there was the messy divorce from his wife Robyn in 2009, and the whole Oksana Grigorieva incident, which also ended in a messy split in 2010.
As for “Mad Max: Fury Road,” the expectations are high, based on the footage we've seen so far from trailers. Fans are actually excited to see where the trilogy is going to pick up. So far, the movie which also stars a bald Charlize Theron (OK, it's more like a buzzcut) is said to be an extended chase that takes place over the course of 3 days.
With minimal dialogue and no introduction, the director warned that “You're picking up the characters and the backstory as you go.” This means that there's not going to be a lot of hand-holding the audience in theaters.
Miller revealed about the scripts that “in order to create that backstory, we found ourselves having written two other screenplays. One of them is completed. The other one is in the form of a kind of unedited novel. So by the time we got there, we realized we've got a couple more Mad Max stories to tell, and that ... required us to cast someone who was younger.”