You wanna know some sorta-interesting facts about an Australian exploitation action film franchise that introduced the world to the wonders of S&M leather? You talk to me.

 

 

Welcome to Triviadome!

 

Mad Max

 

- Director George Miller pulled from his experience as an emergency room doctor and the deaths of several of his friends as inspiration for the violence seen in Mad Max. The idea of gangs fighting over gasoline ("guzoleen") was inspired by the 1973 Oil Crisis, as screenwriter James McCausland wanted a dystopian future based in reality. The movie was funded by Miller and producer Byron Kennedy's work taking late night emergency calls.

 

- Max Rockatansky is named after Carl von Rokitansky, who invented the modern method of organ-removal during autopsies.

 

- Mel Gibson only showed up to auditions to support a friend, but injuries he had received from a bar fight the night before made him look the right amount of "freak" the producers were looking for. He eventually got the titular role, while his friend Steve Bisley got the role of Jim Goose.

 

- Hugh Keays-Byrne, a Shakespearean trained actor, agreed to portray the villainous Toecutter so long as other members of his troupe got to be in the movie. The producers couldn't afford to fly them down to the shoot, so they instead sent the actors their motorcycles and had Keays-Byrne and company ride down.

 

Thirty-six years later, Keays-Byrne was brought back to play the villain of Mad Max: Fury Road, Immortan Joe.

 

 

- Many of the other gang members in the movie were recruited from an actual biker gang in the local area. They were paid with beer and had to have written notes they could show to the police to explain why they were hanging around with weapons. The "get-out-of-jail-free" card makes it into the movie as a gag.

 

- Ironically, the actress originally set to play Max's wife was unable to do so because of an injury from a motorcycle accident; Joanne Samuel was brought in as a replacement.

 

- One of the first Australian films shot with an anamorphic widescreen lens.

 

- There are two separate death scenes in the movie that feature a brief shot of the character's eyes bugging out of their heads before they bite it.

 

- The weird dialect and mannerisms of the Acolytes gang were inspired by A Clockwork Orange, and Hugh Keays-Byrne based Toecutter's characterization on accounts of Genghis Khan.

 

- Tim Burns apparently did such a good job staying in character as the obnoxious Johnny the Boy that no one liked hanging out with him. At one point, he was left hand-cuffed to a car while everyone else went to lunch.

 

- The $350,000 production was so cheap that the crew resorted to stealing signs and returning them after the shoot. The only two police uniforms made of actual leather was Max and Jim Goose's. The others wore vinyl. George Miller ended up donating his van to be destroyed in the opening chase scene.

 

Certainly a far cry from Fury Road, which cost over $100 million and went through a few re-shoots because George Miller didn't think he flipped enough cars the first time around.

 

- They attempted to make the Night Rider's fatal crash more intense via a military-grade rocket strapped to one end of the car, but it went haywire on the first take and chased the crew for a quarter of a mile.

 

 

- The final scene, in which Max suggests that Johnny the Boy get to sawing off his foot to escape death, served as the inspiration for a similar scene in Alan Moore's Watchmen and the Saw series.

 

- The original America release of the film got an awful dub, as the distributor thought Americans wouldn't understand Australasian accents and slang.

 

- Was bigger than Star Wars in Australia. Making $100 million on its small budget, Mad Max was the most successful movie ever made until The Blair Witch Project.

 

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

 

- George Miller initially didn't want to do a sequel, as Hollywood was flooding him with numerous offers, including one to direct First Blood. He changed his mind after a rock-and-roll movie he was developing fell through,with the promise of a bigger budget inciting him to further explore the world he created.

 

- Influenced by samurai flicks, particularly Akira Kurosawa's work.

 

- The black Pursuit Special used by Max is the same one used in the first movie. So it isn't technically an Interceptor, though "Last of the Pursuit Specials" does not sound as badass.

 

- Max's outfit reflects a lot of cool continuity nods to the first movie. The missing right sleeve is a callback to his broken arm from the end of the first movie, which would have required cutting up his jacket for medical attention. He cut off some of the fingers on his glove so its easier to reload his shotgun. The leg brace is due to the bullet he took to the knee, and all the extra straps and harness stuck on his uniform are to help him repair the Interceptor in a hurry.

 

- The location for the shoot was picked due to the lack of rain in the area. Once production began, it rained for the first time in four years.

 

- Max's iconic pooch was an Australian Cattle Dog and was picked up from a shelter on the day before he was to be put to sleep. The constant engine roaring freaked him out, so they gave him doggy earplugs. After the film was shot, he was adopted by one of the cameramen.

 

- The Lord Humungous was originally meant to be Jim Goose, who had apparently healed enough from his near-fatal crash in the last movie to more or less become a super-villain with an army of minions. The medals in his gun case implies some sort of tie to the Nazis.

 

 

- Shot in the same order the story occurs.

 

- Max only has 16 lines in the whole movie.

 

- The rig that allowed close ups of the Interceptor in motion was improperly built, causing the rig to scrape the ground and sparks to fly whenever they went over a hill. The crew never bothered fixing it.

 

- A total of 80 vehicles were built/driven/obliterated for this film.

 

- The awesome shot of the goon flipping through the air during the final chase was not intentional. The stuntman accidentally hit debris while being launched, instantly breaking his leg and sending him cartwheeling around with a limb bent in the wrong direction. It looked cool, so they ended up using it. It was a happy accident. Sort of. Not for him.

 

- Another stunt involving a car jumping a moat resulted in another broken leg for the stunt-driver.

 

- The one stunt everyone expected to somehow do awry, the final truck flip at the end of the movie, went off without a hitch.

 

 

- The much more violent original cut was heavily trimmed by Australian censors. Fortunately, that part where the guy's head gets knocked off by the tanker is still in there. Yay.

 

- It was the most expensive film made in Australia at the time, and the explosion that destroys the oil refinery was the largest ever done for an Australian movie.

 

- It was released as The Road Warrior in America, as the first only saw a limited release, and Mel Gibson wasn't a bankable star yet, so trailers instead focused on the car chases and crazy mohawks.

 

For the record, The Road Warrior is the better name.

 

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

 

- Again, a Mad Max sequel wasn't the original intention. This was originally a Lord of the Flies adaptation set after the apocalypse until it was suggested by George Miller that the adult who eventually finds the kids be Max, and the project changed from there.

 

- George Miller lost interest in the movie when returning producer Byron Kennedy died in a helicopter crash while scouting locations, but he eventually came around to seeing it through in honor of his friend. Miller directed the action sequences, while co-director George Ogilvie directed the drama.

 

- In another bit of character design continuity, Max's left eye is permanently dilated in Thunderdome, a reference to his facial injuries sustained in The Road Warrior.

 

- The steal mail dress Aunty Entity wears weighed 121 pounds.

 

- The first Mad Max produced within the Hollywood production system.

 

- Mel Gibson performed enough of his own stunts that he's credited a second time as a stuntman.

 

 

Unfortunately, he doesn't appear to know how to hold a gun longer than a double-barrel shotgun.

 

 

How embarrassing. Is this how Australian cops are trained to handle rifles? No wonder the country went to crap.

 

- George Miller produced/wrote Babe and directed its sequel Babe: Pig in the City before making the Happy Feet movies. Not really trivia, but it's freaking awesome nonetheless.

 

Hope ya'll enjoyed them facts. And as Mad Max: Fury Road is currently in theaters at the time of this writing, really must urge you to see it. I'd go so far as to say it's one of the greatest action movies ever made, and it deserves to be seen on the big screen. Don't miss it.