Mad Max 4: Fury Road

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Director George Miller has been talking about a fourth Mad Max film for at least the better part of this millennium, but like the title character's attempts to find happiness, it just was never meant to be.

Until now, apparently.

MTV is reporting that not only is Miller pursuing the film again, but that this time around the plan is to make it into a 3-D anime feature.

In the words of Beyond Thunderdome's Dr. Dealgood, "This is the truth of it."

Miller, hot off the failure of getting a Justice League movie off the ground, is turning his attention back to the franchise that first put him on the map. And while the filmmaker is all about the 3-D anime thing, he apparently doesn't think he needs series star Mel Gibson this time around -- not even for voice work.

"We'll probably go a different route," Miller told MTV News.

The film would at least partially use the plot for the never-filmed Mad Max: Fury Road, which came this close to getting produced back in 2003 before, reportedly, the Iraq War screwed everything up Toadie style.

The proposed Mad Max anime would be R-rated, and actually makes some sense when, as MTV points out, one realizes that Miller co-helmed the popular computer-animated flick Happy Feet a couple of years back. There were no dismembered-digits-via-boomerang scenes in that film, alas, though the same cannot necessarily be said about Miller's plans for his Mad Max cartoon.

"The anime is an opportunity for me to shift a little bit about what anime is doing because anime is ripe for an adjustment or sea change," he said. "It's coming in games and I believe it's the same in anime. There's going to be a hybrid anime where it shifts more towards Western sensibilities. [Japanese filmmaker Akira] Kurosawa was able to bridge that gap between the Japanese sensibilities and the West and make those definitive films."

Of course, Miller is also working on a Mad Max videogame with God of War II designer Cory Barlog.

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Oscar winner Charlize Theron and British actor Tom Hardy are the first stars set for George Miller's "Mad Max: Fury Road."

Miller hopes to begin production on the long-gestating sequel in August in Australia, with Warner Brothers distributing.

The fourth film in the "Mad Max" franchise previously came closest to production in 20004 when shooting plans fell apart due to potential unrest in Namibia.

Very little is known about Miller's script, though The Hollywood Reporter says that the action picks up fairly soon after the events of 1985's "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome." That trade report claims that Hardy is taking over for Mel Gibson as ex-cop and post-apocalyptic rover Max Rockatansky, though the Variety story says no such thing, seemingly implying that Gibson may still be involved in some capacity. In any case, Theron would play the project's female lead.

Hardy earned rave reviews for his work as the slightly psychotic prisoner and artist at the center of the Sundance flick "Bronson," though audiences may be more likely to recognize him from smaller roles in films like "Black Hawk Down" and "RocknRolla."

Theron will next be seen in a somewhat different post-apocalyptic drama, Dimension's long-awaited adaptation of "The Road." Her most recent credits include "The Burning Plain" and "Hancock."

[Ferox13]

Its weird how they went from Mad Max 2: Road Warrior to Mad Max 4: Fury Road, skipping number 3..