Following the release of Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015, filmmaker George Miller quickly announced that there was “more to come.” Fury Road, which came after a gap of 30 years in the Mad Max franchise, became an immediate hit because of its grand scale of action. Far Out Magazine called it one of the best action movies of the 21st Century, and it went on to win several Academy Awards.

Needless to say, fans were eager for more. Of course, Miller has never been one to be hurried. Fury Road itself was in development hell for several years, with reasons for delay including rainfall in the Australian desert. In that time, Miller etched out the Mad Max universe in great detail, producing an additional “two scripts without really trying”, as said to Top Gear. Seven years after Fury Road was released, filming has finally begun for Furiosa, the Mad Max prequel that tells the history of Charlize Theron’s character. While this is good news for the fans, it also spells a good few years more before we get to see Mad Max: The Wasteland — the second of those two scripts that delves into the franchise’s titular character.

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Miller has been notoriously scant on details about The Wasteland, although he’s assured us that he does have a story in mind for the movie. The statement does leave us with many questions, including whether if Mad Max: The Wasteland is a sequel to Fury Road.

A Mad Max Universe

     Village Roadshow Pictures

Fury Road earned the entire Mad Max franchise a brand-new mass of fans who were eager to have any update on upcoming films in the franchise. Although details have been scant, Miller has spoken at length about the Mad Max universe that lives in his head — one that was built not as a compilation of insulated stories, but as an organic fictional universe.

At this point, it is common knowledge to fans that the Furiosa story was written before Fury Road was even made. According to Miller himself, this was the result of an entirely organic process — one in which he followed through with his instincts to explain the backstory of all the details that are included in Fury Road. This preparation was not only opportune because of the movie’s long development period, but also essential in order to create a film where all the elements spoke to the same logic. In an interview with Deadline, Miller said, “I wondered, okay, how does a man who is blind and mute—and basically he could only play a guitar—survive the apocalypse? It’s actually something I’d like to use if I make another film, so I’d better keep that one to myself.”

Miller has also thought about the possibility of letting other directors take over some Mad Max spinoffs — and he isn’t against the idea at all. In fact, he already has a list of three directors to whom he’d be willing to hand over the reins. So, while subsequent entries into the franchise might be slow in the coming, it seems that the storyteller in Miller is definitely intent on building the Mad Max universe with more films.

Tom Hardy is Eager to Return

      Warner Bros. Pictures

While Miller is busy making Furiosa right now, he still has plans for the titular star of Fury Road, Tom Hardy. While he’s been busy with a lot of blockbuster titles including playing the Marvel anti-hero Venom, was actually contracted for three Mad Max movies, and has been more than eager to jump back into character: “I’ve signed to do three of them. It’s a question of when. I’m not sure it’s called The Wasteland or not ‘cause you never know. These titles change all the time. But, there’s definitely another Mad Max project pending.”

The Wasteland is Not a Direct Sequel

     Warner Bros. Pictures

In the same year that Fury Road was released, Miller had spoken more about his pre-Fury Road period of writing in an interview with FMH. He explained that the two other stories he had worked on will be “tangentially linked. They’re all in the same world, but they won’t be direct sequels”. Given that one of these stories turned out to be Furiosa, it seems quite likely that The Wasteland is the second of those stories. He finally revealed a new detail about this period of writing in a recent interview with The AV Club, which could explain what story we’ll be seeing in the next Mad Max film.

“We also wrote, not a screenplay, but almost in novel form, Nico Lathouris and I, what happened to Max in that year before, and that’s something that we’ll look at further down the track later. But in telling each other the story of Furiosa, everything in Fury Road had to be explained. In my mind, I have a back story of the Doof Warrior, who plays the guitar. How could a blind man who all he can do is play a guitar, how does he get to survive in a wasteland where everybody is in extremis? How did he come to be there? So we wrote little stories for every character when we made Fury Road."

Furiosa was born out of Miller’s desire to elaborate upon the bizarre post-apocalyptic world order seen in Fury Road. It could very well be that this “novel” that details the outings of Max Rockatansky in the time leading up to Fury Road could form the basis of The Wasteland, effectively making the movie a prequel rather than a sequel. However, unlike Furiosa, it probably won’t be an origin story of Max Rockatansky. Since Miller has stated that the “novel” follows Max in the year before Fury Road, The Wasteland will probably tell the story of how he ends up imprisoned by Immortan Joe.