Summary

• Tom Hardy doesn't think the Mad Max: Fury Road sequel, Mad Max: The Wasteland, will happen.
• Director George Miller has expressed interest in recent years in making another prequel to Fury Road about Max, not a sequel.
• Furiosa's poor performance in theaters might mean that the franchise is put on ice for the forseeable future.

Mad Max: Fury Road star Tom Hardy addresses the status of Mad Max: The Wasteland. Released in 2015, George Miller's Fury Road sees Hardy take on the role of Max, a role played in previous films by Mel Gibson. The film was widely celebrated, and Miller has since returned to the franchise with his new prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. In the years after Fury Road's release, however, it was reported that a sequel called Mad Max: The Wasteland was in development, which would feature Hardy reprising his role.

During a recent interview with Forbes, Hardy comments on Mad Max: The Wasteland, offering a disappointing update. According to the actor, the Fury Road sequel isn't in the works. Check out Hardy's brief but direct comment about the sequel below:

“I don’t think that’s happening.”

Why Another Mad Max Movie Might Not Happen

Furiosa's Underperformance May Have Killed The Franchise

Mad Max: The Wasteland might be dead in the water, but Miller did recently express interest in making another prequel, this time to Fury Road. According to the filmmaker, this prequel would chronicle what happened to Max in the year before the events of his 2015 movie. Presumably, due to the movie's timeline, the door would be open for Hardy to reprise his role. Unfortunately, this project is now also looking quite unlikely.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga's reviews have been generally very positive, but the film has not been a box office success. So far, it's earned only about $160.3 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $168 million. What's more, Fury Road may have been acclaimed and a major awards performer, but it wasn't more than a somewhat modest success financially. Together, the two films suggest that the Mad Max saga lacks the wide audience appeal needed to justify another installment, at least at a similar price point.

Miller himself has expressed that he was waiting to see how Furiosa performed before getting too far into development on his other prequel, and the movie's disappointing box office has probably killed momentum on the project. If another movie could be made with a low enough budget, it's possible that it could still move forward in a few years, but Miller is currently 79 years old. Unfortunately, with Mad Max: The Wasteland not happening and Miller's other prequel on ice, Hardy's tenure as Max may not extend beyond one movie.

Source: Forbes