Director George Miller provides an update on the long-gestating Mad Max 5: The Wasteland, the sequel to Mad Max: Fury Road. Acting as the fourth installment in the Mad Max franchise, which first graced screens in 1979 with Mel Gibson in the titular role, 2015's Fury Road was an undeniable hit. In addition to boasting some of the best reviews of the franchise, Fury Road was also a major success at the box office, earning over $375 million on a production budget estimated to be around $185 million.

Ever since the action-packed introduction of Tom Hardy's Max and Charlize Theron's Furiosa, fans have been clamoring for a return to the apocalyptic desert wasteland of Mad Max: Fury Road. A sequel to the film, with a working title of Mad Max: The Wasteland was announced shortly after the release of Mad Max: Fury Road, with Miller even announcing that a script had been completed. Since then, however, concrete news regarding the film has been hard to come by. After delays due to a legal dispute between Miller and Warner Bros., the production of the highly anticipated Furiosa prequel, and Hardy's packed film and television schedule, many fans are wondering whether Mad Max 5: The Wasteland will happen at all.

A new report from Variety has finally offered an update on Mad Max 5: The Wasteland. Unfortunately, however, it doesn't sound as if the project will be coming any time soon. While certainly not outright canceled, Mad Max 5 has no release window and it's currently unknown if Hardy will be reprising his titular role. Check out Miller's comments on The Wasteland below:

“We do have another story but it’s still not fully evolved. We’ll see further down the chain.”



For now, it certainly sounds like Mad Max 5's release date is quite a ways off, since the film doesn't seem to be entering production in the near future. Although Miller previously said a script for the film was complete, his latest comment hints that maybe there has been a change of plan, or that he's decided to go back to the drawing board on the film. With the news that Hardy is also not a lock to return as Max, Mad Max 5: The Wasteland has a few major hurdles to overcome before it has any hope of getting the green light and the film might end up not being the direct Mad Max: Fury Road sequel that many were expecting.

Mad Max: Fury Road reinvigorated the love for a franchise that is now over 40 years old, injecting it with new life and proving that Miller is still at the top of his game as an action filmmaker. While it's unclear what form Mad Max 5: The Wasteland will take and if it will see the return of Hardy's Max or Theron's Furiosa, audiences should certainly not expect to see the film in the next few years. For now, fans of Mad Max can look forward to Furiosa, a prequel that promises to explore the fan-favorite character at an earlier stage of her life, and will again come directly from Miller's impressive imagination.

Furiosa (2023)
Release Date: Jun 23, 2023