www.madmaxmovies.com

Would love to know peoples thoughts, if for whatever reason George Miller decided to hang up his Directors boots on any more Mad Max movies for Mel Gibson to take on this role.
For me Mel would be a perfect choice.
Your thoughts?

It would never get financial backing from any studio affiliated with hollywood

As far as his directing chops, he's done some good stuff
But he does historical action/drama's

I'm not sure I get the impression that he's particularly interested in fantasy/sci-fi,
and you might not get a good MM movie from someone who isn't really interested in that

Mel's back in the Hollwood clique now. He's got the experience and it would put butts in seats. Blockbusters are micromanaged by execs and producers anyway. It's not like the franchise is sacred anymore. I'd bet the horse not the farm on this one.

I wouldn't have said that if Mel wasn't a good director, but since he really knows about directing (and it's also something Miller picked up on early on working with him on Mad Max movies)...

I'd say Mel would be a solid candidate for a director should Miller step aside. The thing about him that convinced me the most though is that Mel really understands the character of Max.
In one of the more recent interviews, I think it was on the Hi Octane Blu Ray bonus, Mel explained perfectly what Max is about - Max is supposed to be scared but never show it, and engage regardless.

The way it manifests itself on the screen is that Max looks cool and collected when action takes place but if you look at his eyes you can see the fear. I didn't see that with Tom Hardy. I don't blame the actor because it was the director who told him what to do but I think Mel had a deeper understanding of the character, maybe even more than the director himself. So if he stepped up to direct the new Mad Max movie there's a chance we would see the old Max again, instead of the new one which frankly looked too much like a hero jumping into action without hesitation, I didn't see that fear in him at all, there wasn't that conflict of 'I don't want to, but I have to', he just DID things. If you know what I mean.

For me I don't want anyone but Miller to direct MAD MAX, anyone else directing just seems wrong. Mel is a good director, just not right for MAD MAX in my opinion.

Taipan makes an excellent analysis here. Everyone should take note about what he's written about who Max really is and how Mel seems to get that.

We're a culture obsessed with directors when it comes to movies and can rarely care less when it comes to TV. We need to be more aware of just how much other cast/crew members can steer a movie for better or for worse.

Taipan wrote:...Mel really understands the character of Max.

I could totally see Mel diirecting a character piece

And he's even done action type movies before,
but is he a gear head?

Does he really see the BOB as the secondary, but important character that it is?

somehow that printed twice,
So let me add that Thunderdome is a character analyzation
And it doesn't make a great MM movie for it
Its too stuffy and internal

I don't believe he's a gearhead but I don't think that's an issue if a director puts the right people in control. The real mistake with movie cars is allowing the art-department to lead vehicle design too much. Fast and Furious was a prime example of that. The car builders had to rebel hard to get the cars anywhere near realistic and they were still wacky. A Fury Road prequel would be a great opportunity to have more sane vehicles battling on real roads.

I don't know if people realize this but Miller isn't a gearhead either and MM movies haven't had a real gearhead since MM2.

Sure, they're all considered 'car movies' but only the first 2 were truly car flicks thanks to Byron. The 3rd one had wacky cars thanks to Terry Hayes who hated cars in MM2 (real talk). In Fury Road they employed Peter Pound as lead car designer but the rest of the designs were so out of touch with reality they literally had to have someone to put sense back into those concepts. AFAIK, even the lead production designer Colin Gibson was learning about cars as they went along, although the decision to go with a 'hot rod' direction for Fury Road was made early on, you should've seen the earliest designs, they were really out there, inspired by Ned Kelly, thorny lizards, WWII tank cars, not a lot of it had to do with Australian car culture at all. To make matters worse, Miller seemed to be fascinated with WETA and their work and employed them to create their versions of the cars for the movie. I highly doubt they understood what they were doing and Miller had to be dragged away from the idea of using them in the movie, by Colin Gibson no less. Miller is a film maker first and foremost, he wants cool stuff on the screen he'll get it but without a bunch of people steering him in the right direction things can go awry pretty quickly. A good example of that was Babe 2 that had a weird dark tone because Miller was fascinated by City of The Lost Children, watching it in his trailer when they were making Babe.

Having said that, neither Gibson nor Miller have to be knee deep in Australian car culture to pull it off, they just need someone who really understands it to put that flavor into the movie.