Brendan McCarthy talks about the conception of Mad Max 4

[Copwatch]

"Audiences don't know what they want. If they did, they'd be the artist."

Still, Max-as-villain is intriguing, and really follows up on the cycle that Miller mentioned way back during Thunderdome's production, that of the hero becoming the tyrant.

[Uncle Entity]

"Audiences don't know what they want. If they did, they'd be the artist."

Still, Max-as-villain is intriguing, and really follows up on the cycle that Miller mentioned way back during Thunderdome's production, that of the hero becoming the tyrant.

YEAH, but I say: let's make him a "temporary" villain.

[Uncle Entity]

I just loved this post from IMDB:

"I agree-unlike recurring movie characters, MAX simply cannot be portayed by anyone else but Mel. He IS Max. His personality is part of the character and the world created by Miller-specifically because the story created and developed between the three films can only be comfortably be associated with Mel by all of the fans who have followed this trilogy. I simply do not understand why they just can't get Mel into this-anything too demanding can be done with a stunt double and crafty filming. But we do need to see his face and hear his voice or we will not be able to fully commit to supporting a forth film.
As a side point, wouldn't it fit into the storyline anyway, to have Max a lot older now? I'm sure it can be written that way."

[Stef-Man]

I want to understand. Who had the plot idea first: George Miller or Brendan McCarthy?

Apparently the idea for Mad Max 4 came to Dr Miller in 1987 when he was crossing the street. Then, in 1996, he dreamt the whole storyline during a flight from LA to Sydney.

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=4876

But...

Fury Road co-writer Brendan McCarthy did an interview this week, talking mostly about comics, but he also touched on his involvement in the development Mad Max 4.

(...) and I (McCarthy) said, "Why don't you (Miller) do Mad Max 4, for God's sake! I mean, whatever happened to Mad Max? Well, he's still out there somewhere in the Wasteland, you know?" I said, "If you ever do it, the story should be about..."

Well, McCarthy first met George Miller before the release of Toy story at the beginning of the Reboot adventure. In 1994, I think. And, apparently, McCarthy gave a story idea to the Mad Max creator. So... the chronology of the plot conception is pretty weird.

[biolumen]

You're not alone Stef. My guess is that it was a collaborative effort, but that the primary story idea came from Miller. McCarthy was hired to flesh it out on paper, essentially writing the screenplay with Miller, via storyboards and whatnot. I suspect that some (or many) of the ideas McCarthy proposed at their first meeting were ultimately incorporated into Miller's story. I mean, that's basically why McCarthy was hired. Miller liked what he heard from him. I tend to believe, though, that the basic outline came on that flight to Australia.

I also read on one of those AICN talkbacks that McCarthy tends to embelish the extent of his contributions, but this is just hearsay as it's coming from an anonymous internet poster.

[biolumen]

Check this out. Someone's posting scans of McCarthy's Freakwave comic, the one mentioned earlier in this thread. It dates back to 1983, so it's just after MM2 came out but before Waterworld.

http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1272510.html

[Stef-Man]

I love the look of Mickey Death. Very Mad Max.

[biolumen]

Found another article in which McCarthy talked about what we could expect from Fury Road. This interview goes way back to October 2001 when he spoke with Dark Horizons website. Unfortunately, the article is no longer retrievable from the site, but the pertinent quote is conveniently cached on another site.

I also asked him about Mad Max 4, for which Brendan spent two years in Sydney, writing and designing with the genius George Miller!!! In a way, he says, it is the true follow-up to "Mad Max 2, Road Warrior", a "serious, savage, sexy, surreal sequel...We looked at every action-car-biker movie going. Pretty much all of them have dated badly. Except Road Warrior. That's our competition...Gulp! I'm confident with George directing, that we will deliver the goods. A raw, kinetic assault that will take you to that great world of manic Mad Max mayhem. Sorry, I sound like I've got alliteration poisoning, but it's just that I really, really love what we've done on this film... you've got a great movie barrelling down the freeway at you in a few years time." Asked about Mel Gibson, Brendan confirmed he'd met him a while back, and hoped that Mel would step into the leathers again.

http://www.moviefans.de/madmax/archiv.html

Sexy? He better be referring to the cars.

[Peter Barton]

Q: What's happening with the new Mad Max movie, Fury Road? Are you still involved?

Over 8 years ago, I co-wrote and did core designs on Mad Max: Fury Road. That was quite a while ago, so I'm not sure how much of my script or design is still there. But I'm pleased to say that it's back in production. The director, George Miller is a very talented and savvy fellow and I look forward to seeing it. I just hope it's a good movie.

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/20 ... -mccarthy/

[biolumen]

Every time I ask if he's stil involved, he denies it. I think our best bet is for the movie to get made, with or without him (and he's physcally on the wrong continent to be currently contributing) which would mean that Brendan would be finally free to share (and by that, I really mean "publish") what work he did do on the movie. Which would be pretty much a big honkin' cross between a script book, an art-of book, and a graphic novel. Maybe even something not 100 miles from the book Darren Aronofsky and Kent Williams produced for THE FOUNTAIN, if we were really lucky.

That Miller and everyone around him is still referring to the movie as "Fury Road" is hopefully a good signifier that much of the story Brendan worked on is still present in the shooting script.

http://www.badlibrarianship.com/2010/02 ... nd-up.html