Film research: Mad Max - Fury Road

Mad Max - Fury Road (2015)

Producer/Production companies:

 This film was produced by Kennedy Miller Productions and Village Roadshow Pictures along with distributors such as Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox in over 30 countries all over the world including Australia, Canada, Taiwan as well as the UK and USA.

Director:

Name: George Miller

Best known for: 'Mad Max' (1979), 'Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior' (1981), 'Happy Feet' (2006), 'Mad Max: Fury Road' (2015)

Awards: George Miller awards

Screen Writers:

George Miller: known from previous 'Mad Max' films

Brendan McCarthy: known for - writing comics from 1977 onwards including 2000AD's 'Judge Dredd' comics

Nick Lathouris: known for - ''Mad Max' (1979), 'Death in Brunswick' (1990) and 'The Heartbreak Kid' (1993)

Actors (Top billed):

Name: Tom Hardy

Character: Max Rockatansky

Known for: 'Inception' (2010), 'The Dark Knight Rises' (2012), 'Warrior' (2011)

Name: Charlize Theron

Character: Imperator Furiosa

Known for: 'Monster' (2003), 'Hancock' (2008), 'Prometheus' (2012)

Name: Nicholas Hoult

Character: Nux

Known for: 'Warm Bodies' (2013), 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' (2014), 'About a Boy' (2002)

Budget/Box Office sales/Screens shown on:

This film had an estimated $150,000,000 as its budget, of which it made $44,440,000 back in the USA in its first weekend of being released on the 15th of May 2015. By the 18th of September, it had totalled a gross of $153,629,485 in the USA alone. Around this time in September, Mad Max: Fury Road had made roughly $374,712,032 worldwide. When the film was first released in May 2015, it was shown on around 3,702 screens in the USA, bringing $44,440,000 into the box office. Even in September when the movie is only being shown on around 50 screens at one time, it is still bringing in $17,453 at the weekend showings.

Composers:

Name: Junkie XL (aka: Tom Holkenborg)

Best Known for: 'Green Street' (2005), 'Resident Evil' (2002), '21' (2008) and 'The Animatrix' (2003)

Awards:

• 2012 and 2007: Nominated for the Best Music award by Golden Calf

Marketing:

This movie was well advertised when the trailer was released at the San Diego Comic Con to an audience that were bound to want to see the film as it is a popular franchise within the Comic Con fans. It attracted a large audience as the movie posters, trailers, etc. showed Charlize Theron in the centre, portraying a strong female character (which is very popular in todays culture and society). She is also wearing a prosthetic arm, which shows and supports the importance of stronger representations of groups within TV and film, making this a popular film socially. The TV adverts and trailers were aired on around 45 networks on 858 national airings. Most of the airings were shown across MTV and Comedy Central, however the NBA basketball playoffs received the most spending on airings at around $1.5 million. A marketing campaign was also launched through social media where fans were asked movie-related questions and drawing questions and drawing them into this fictional post-apocalyptic world.

Official Trailer

Special effects/Technical specs:

This movie mainly uses pyrotechnics/vehicle technology as most of the effects were based around car chases and fight/action scenes. Stunt doubles were needed for the amount of physical effects created between the actors and the vehicles. Surprisingly, CGI was used sparingly - only to enhance the fantasy/Namibian landscape. 

Runtime	2 hr (120 min)
Sound Mix	Dolby Digital | Datasat | SDDS | Dolby Atmos
Color	Color
Aspect Ratio	2.35 : 1
Camera	Arri Alexa M, Panavision Primo Lenses Arri Alexa Plus, Panavision Primo Lenses Blackmagic Cinema Camera (some shots) Canon EOS 5D Mark II (some shots) Olympus P5 (some shots)
Film Length	(7 reels)
Negative Format	CF Codex
Cinematographic Process	ARRIRAW (2.8K) (source format) Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format) ProRes 4:2:2 (1080p/24) (source format)
Printed Film Format	35 mm (anamorphic) (Kodak Vision 2383) D-Cinema (also 3-D version)

Issues:

There were apparent issues during the filming of this film as two of the main actors, Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy did not get along on set which made it difficult during the filming process. Also, there are moral issues that are tackled in this movie such as the portrayal of a patriarchal society where women were abused which put the audience in a difficult position. There were also issues with the weather on some shooting days where it was cold when it was supposed to be hot, etc. Reshoots delayed the release of the film.