This was posted via Yahoo today. Headline is George Miller is "heartbroken" over Mel's career and his actions but the actual article has much more going for it:
https://movies.yahoo.com/news/mad-max-d ... 09294.html
SAN DIEGO (AP) — "Mad Max" director George Miller was "heartbroken" over Mel Gibson's string of scandals in recent years, and said plans for a new trilogy prompted him to pick a younger actor for revisiting the post-apocalyptic auto action franchise.
The 69-year-old Australian director helped launch Gibson to stardom three decades ago in the trilogy featuring stark desert landscapes, intense car chases and a bleach blonde Tina Turner. Miller had originally hoped to bring Gibson back for a fourth film in the role of Max Rockatansky. But a series of delays led to recasting, with Tom Hardy, 36, stepping into the road warrior's black boots.
"I have a great affection for Mel. I was really heartbroken to see him go into that," Miller said in a recent interview. "But it's a new time. I hope Mel gets to act in more movies because I think he's a wonderful actor. But I think he's an amazingly good director."
I thought this part was interesting where Miller talks about the films that could follow Fury Road..
"You're picking up the characters and the backstory as you go," Miller said. "And 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."
I know some were worried that Miller may of wanted to tell more of a story for Furiosa and possibly move from Max to this new character for future films, especially when the rumored title for Fury Road's follow up was 'FURIOSA', but it sounds like the new tales of Max Rockatansky played by Tom Hardy will continue for an all new trilogy....should Fury Road be a success.
