Slashdot Mirror
New Mad Max Film
IceDiver writes "According to Google News Mel Gibson has signed up for a new Mad Max film "Fury Road". His salary? A whopping $25,000,000.00 Apparently the script has been in the works for 3 years and is highly polished. As a big fan of all 3 Mad Max films, I am looking forward to this one!
"
and I thought he was too old for the last lethal weapon.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
I wonder if they will make any money.
According to the article they are going to spend about 180 mil to make MM4, and MM1,2,3 combined made less than 70 mil.
But then again, these days is seems like all you need ia a hot chick and some special effects to rake it in - plot optional.
I guess we know who run Bartertown.
This film will be about as good as number 3. Which was about as good as WaterWorld.
The low budget Mad Max 1 & 2 were great, even though 2 was over dubbed in American.
This is perhaps the coolest thing to ever happen!!
"Two days ago I saw a vehicle that'd haul that tanker. You want to get out of here, you talk to me."
"Damage? You should see the damage, bronze! Metal damage! Brain damage! You listening bronze??!"
Ahh. I feel better now...
enough to make it look as low budget as the first one? Paying Mel 25 million they may not have a choice! :-)
I mean, weren't we supposed to expect the apocalypse to have happened by now already? Or is it like a James Bond or Superman thing, the old Umberto Eco concept of the Open Text. I dunno.
25 mill!!
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Lazy man's google new link.
He's.. he's just a child! He doesn't know any better.
Mad Max 4:Beyond the Nursing Home
"You admit to being a "fan" of Thunder Dome? Blarg."
I definately admit to it. To this day I'll occasionally hear the chanting in my head, "Two men enter! One man leave!"
Thankfully it's at completely inappropriate times like corporate meetings or trying to merge in traffic.
Chuck Firment
Remember where you are. This is Thunderdome. Death is listening, and will take the first man who screams.
Of course, I say Remember where you are. This is Slashdot. Mod is listening, and will take the first man who posts.
We don't need another hero, hero, all we want is what's beyond Thunderdome!
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
You mean according to Google News by way of CNN, by way of Reuters, don't ya?
3 years!?! That script must be so polished you have to shield your eyes from it.
Am I the only one that read the title as "Furry Road?"
_______
2B1ASK1
For $25,000,000 for the fourth movie he should go from "Mad Max" to "Old, Rich, Happy Max".
According to Google News Mel Gibson has signed up for a new Mad Max film "Fury Road".
And it's already available at sidewalk kiosks throughout China.
I read about the movie this morning on CNN, but I wasn't really that excited by it. The interesting part of the story arc has been exhausted, IMHO. I'm not exactly sure where this one will go, unless it is a rehash of the last two plots.
1. Mad Max = world going to hell
2. Road Warrior = world gone to hell
3. Thunderdome = World gone to hell, but redeeming itself
4. New movie = (?) Make money!
There is some overlap (Road Warrior had an inkling of redemption at the end, but it was more explicit in Thunderdome.
This may end up being a good action flick, but I am not seeing significant potential to do anything very new or exciting. I expect that, like Mel, we'll find out that the series is old and tired.
guac-foo.
Lots of petrified grits
I'll see it, I'm sure, but I'm skeptical as to whether the true spirit of the originals will persist. The ideas and expressions that once comprised pop culture have changed so much that the original Mad Max themes of individualist strength and moral integrity will probably be cast aside in favor of a more contemporary populist sensibility.
By way of comparison, consider that "Popeye" had a character called Wimpy, who was addicted to hamburgers (a stand-in for alcohol in those more sensitive times). He was continuously broke, and to finance his habit was reduced to trying to con other characters out of their money ("I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"). His crippling addiction lost him everything, even his dignity. He was not a hero, but a character to be pitied for his devotion to something so artificial and his lack of work ethic.
Look at today's children's cartoons and you'll find nothing like Wimpy. Instead, you'll see obviously gay characters like Spongebob Squarepants, who epitomizes and glorifies chronic laziness and disrespect for authority. Even his name, "Squarepants," alludes to the angular uniforms of China's Red Army. Is it any surprise that generation Xers grow up with no work ethic and a feeling of entitlement, when they have been indoctrinated with this kind of skewed moral framework? The values expressed in the original Mad Max films are completely alien to them, and I'm not optimistic that they'll come through at all.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
- Original director from first film
- Big budget
- A script that's been in the works for years
- Beloved franchise
- Original actors where possible
Sounds like it can't go wrong, right?Can you say The Phantom Menace?
Schnapple
With the first one made in 1979, that means mel gibson will be what, 25 yrs or so older in this one. Now I realize he's only going to be 47 this coming yr, but still, it strikes me the same as making a new Indiana Jones movie at this point. It's a sequel to a movie (or series of movies) I liked a lot, but is the actor too old to portray the character? I don't want to think of Indiana Jones or Mad Max as older -- they're the guys in the originals, characters like that don't age. It's why they switch James Bond actors. You don't want to see James Bond realistically portrayed as a 60 yr old spy. He's a 30+ yr old guy kicking ass and sleeping with hot women.
Mad Max Movies FAQ is a great link for all thing's Mad Max
He makes it to the shore just as Kevin Costner steps ashore from his catamaran.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Mel will be driving a beat up station wagon, with the right turn signel flashing, 20 miles an hour under the speed limit while looking for an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
and as long as Kennedy shoots the films in Australia, enough of the Australian culture, with it's swaggering, hard drinking, tough individualistic nature that show in Mad Max I and II, will flavor Mad Max IV so that it can avoid the worst excesses of the namby-pamby PC culture we live in.
True, the Aussie have had to turn in their guns, and since the Olympics in Sydney they can no longer beat and kill the blackfellas with impunity, but they're still just about the most macho sorts on earth.
So, yes, I have high hopes for this sequel, and as a devoted Mad MAx fan, you can bet that once it's been shot, I will stay up all night scouring WinMX, edonkey and Kazaa for the divx to download.
he sure looks old for his age. in close-ups he reminds me of the cigarette man.
Ignore the plot and much of the dialog. Look at the world. There are few other films that build as good a world as the Mad Max films did. It's not a great movie, I'll grant that, but it's still great entertainment.
Highly Polished... yea, I know what that means. It means a committee has been hard at work f***ing up what was probably a pretty good script.
A couple of recent script-by-committee disasters include "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", "Batman and Robin", and "The Scorpion King". Of course having one person in full control of the script isn't necessarily a good thing either as Mr. Lucas has so painfully pointed out.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
While I'd love to see a good new movie, and I hope that the script really is as polished as everyone attached is claiming, I get the feeling that the best move is to walk away.
Of course, as soon as I turn to leave, I'll catch a crossbow bolt through the head by some mohawked buy hissing at me.
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
They were so ahead of their time. the essential were doing what Water World tried to do 20 years before.
The messages in the movie are subtle and often hidden under all the chaos and death, but they are there nonetheless.
Mel Gibson is a superb actor, if anyone can pull this off it's him. Very few actors can sustain a series like this, Stallone, Arnold, Bruce Willis.
I'm boycotting the theatres but I'll definately by the DVD.
At $25m/movie....aren't we getting close to the stage where it's cheaper to have Colbians kidnap the star, steal their DNA, and for underground Japanese cloning labs to clone said star? ;-)
Hold on....I just gave away the plot for Mel Gibson's NEXT movie!!!
-psy
Yeah, and he shoots Costner in the head with his shotgun pistol! I'd pay to see that!
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Never fear, Jar-Jar to the rescue!
Dark Helmet:
How can there be a cassette of Spaceballs: The Movie? We're still in the middle of making it!
Col. Sandurz:
That's true, sir. But, there's been a new breakthrough in home video marketing.
Dark Helmet:
There has?
Col. Sandurz:
Yes. Instant cassettes. They're out in stores before the movie is finished.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
More important than actors? Fine you get your ass up in front of the camera.
Sorry pal but actors go through hell trying to make, they earn their dues just like everyone else. Drop the elitest attitude.
Yes Mel makes a lot of cash. Big deal, he earns it.
Don't like that? To bad, Mel will pack the house. No one cares who wrote, for better or worse.
I happen to like Mels acting, have since I saw the first Mad Max movie. He's extremely talented and deserves what ever the market is willing to give him
This is what the actualy article says about the script:
"This is the most exhaustively prepared movie I have ever been associated with," said Hutch Parker, president of production at Twentieth Century Fox. "The script is as ready as they come."
I can imagine the conversation:
"So how does the script look?"
"It's exhaustively prepared."
"Is it good?"
"It's as ready as they come!"
"oh...great."
Taking bets now.
The Road Warrior was my favorite movie from the first time i saw it (at the tender age of 5) up until "The Devil's Advocate" came out.
.au emailed me about it with lots of details and info while i was in college. There are clone mad max cars up for auction from time to time. Hopefully, when im old and loaded, i'll be able to pick up a perfect replica mad-max car, with a _working_ super charger that somehow makes that incredible whine when i engage the supercharger.
Nobody in kindergarten knew what the hell i was talking about if i asked them if they needed a guy to haul this rig.
To this day, i still want the car he had in mad max. That supercharger (albeit fake) was the coolest thing i've ever seen. And i want a gear lever with a red button on it that makes the most glorious sound i've ever heard. I had a whole section on my website about the mad max car and some guy in
I've actually asked a couple of tuners about that functionality, apparently it was pretty suspect. To run a boosted motor you need to run lower compression pistons to avoid predetonation, which means that when the SC was disengaged you'd be making shit for power , (although i guess technically you'd be using less gas, but the engine would be way less than optimally efficient). that makes it basically a tradeoff, theres probably some crossover point where you're actually getting better "bang for your gas" with the SC engaged than with it off.
Also, whowever invented the wrist-gauntlet mounted mini-crossbow is a diety.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
if you will recall, max's interceptor was blown to pieces in the road warrior after someone tried to get his gasoline without defusing the booby trap
Live EVERY week... Like it's Shark Week
I think my favourite part of the article is the president of Fox saying, "This is an event movie, and we know how to market event movies."
It's not even about the movie anymore. It's just about how much marketing can be done; how much money can be made.
~ "When I'm of that age I'm just going to live up a tree."
You see, it's an _event_. Rowf!
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I've worked in production offices for a few years and, while actors are getting some serious perks for "playing pretend", they also take the brunt of the blame if the movie goes over budget, hits delays or ultimately crashes and burns. I'm not saying that it's fair compensation but if I work on a string of movies that tank I still have a fairly easy time finding work on another one, not so with the face on the screen.
um news.google.com They have entered the world of journalism. Well not really, its just a really cool gizmo that leeches news off other sites, kinda like slashdot, except automated, and with less dupes.
Why not fork?
In an interview Mel and Danny proclaimed "We're not to old for this shit!"
woo-hoo! new mad max film. it would be a good idea to study it to learn how to live after bush starts a nuclear holocaust...
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
You plan to make a movie big enough to haul in the huge wads of cash you need to pay Mel Gibson's script.
What a puny plan.
Dude you've seen it to many times.
You could always look into what Saleen does with their Mustangs. They supercharge the hell out of them. I used to race against a guy with an old 5.0 Saleen, he made the quarter mile in 11 seconds, with the car stock.
I heard that in his contract on the set everyone is to refer to him as "Lord Humongous."
You had fake leather? You were lucky! When I was a lad, we had to paint our bodies with hot sulfurous pitch if we wanted to even LOOK like we wore fake leather in a movie!
How can we afford to ever sleep
So sound again
--ebtg
Max discovers an old crate of Viagra underneath some rubble, and heads back to Barter Town's red light district in a hurry.
Patriot - American challenges the English Braveheart - Scottish challenges the English MadMax4 - Auzzies challenge the English?????
There's a decent article that just came out about the prequels in the latest edition of the Bright Lights Film Journal.
:)
Reading it made me wonder if the film was actually better for having Lucas behind the camera.
Back to the issue of Mad Max, I doubt anything can go wrong as long as they haul back Tina Turner. She easily made the third film.
He just looks quite a bit older then he is.
You! You can run, but you can't hide.
We've all lost someone we love.
The Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla!
Be a shame to blow it up.
Pre-emptive strike against everyone complaining about how we shouldn't let the MPAA control our lives here.
[o]_O
Real programmers would talk about $0x17D7840, $0137274100, or $1011111010111100001000000 (hex, octal, and binary respectively)
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
I felt like the major theme of Thunderdome was the beginning of rebuilding of culture after the the big end.
The conflict, in case you hadn't noticed, was not between Max, The Kiddies, and Tina Turner. The real conflict was between the gentler, more spiritual, but primative cargo-cult-style cutlure the children had built for themselves and the harsher, capitalistic culture of Batertown. Which of these two would be the salvation of the human race? Barter-town was certainly growing and progressing faster than the Kiddies, but was already encountering shortages and conflicts that could only be dealt through with war... The Thunderdome. Even though they claimed to have done away with the past, it still haunted them. The Kiddies were holding onto the past like a religion... and only a religion. They were starting over from the ground up, having truly left the past behind them for all intents and purposes.
The director's view of the conflict is pretty straightforward. Which culture moved back into the cities and began to rediscover technology at the end of the movie?
I hear a lot of people complain about Beyond Thunderdome. I think it's because they're not looking deeply enough for real, chewable content. It's a great movie. You just have to know where to look to find it. (Hint... It's not in Tina's chainmail minidress.)
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Right?
Think about it - back in the old episodes, Mel Gibson was still talking twangy aussie-like (not sure what to call it, so don't flame me) - since then, he has managed to "Americanize" himself away from the "Aussie Mad Max" image (voice coaching? I dunno). I have to say I like the works he has done recently (Ransom and What Women Want being two of the better "normal length" recent movies, IMHO) - but there isn't much of a trace of "Mad Max" in either.
I hope what they do with the movie is advance the time a few decades, cast Mel as an older, wiser Max - then get the dude who played the "Ferral Kid" to be the main risk taker, under the watchful eye of Max - it would make sense, timewise - and I think the guy could pull it off...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I killed Mad Max in Fallout(tm)!!!! His dog isn't that loyal to my surprise...
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
http://www.saleen.com/auto/SR/srperformance.html
This Saleen does 11.8 stock
This wasn't what he was driving so you're probably right his car wasnt doing 11, but you are obviously quite wrong that no Saleen has. The Cobra is a joke compared to Saleen mustangs.
Not exactly...Mel is a walking poster boy for wearing your SPF 30 sunscreen. He got a LOT of sun in his youth. Now he looks like a hunk...of rawhide.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Virginia Hey, the touch female warrior who later went on to play Farscape's Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan!
MMBT only gave us Tina Turner in a metal Bikini - attractive, but not quite the same thing!
NSA: No Such Agency
$25m = Can you name a single movie where the lead made that kind of $$ that was actually any good? I'd rather see Guy Pearce (Memento) or Bruce Campbell get paid $1m to play Max.
"highly polished" == script-writing by committee, always a good sign.
"script has been in the works for 3 years" = "The first draft sucked. The second draft sucked too. 37 drafts later, we still think it might suck, but then, we're the kind of jerks who will put a script through three years worth of rewrites before shooting a lame horse."
My suggestion for the title: "Mad Max Resurrection." I wanna be optimistic, but oh man this looks bad...
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
Which ratio statistic are you questioning? The Blair Witch Project got over a 2300:1 profit-to-cost ratio.. Two orders of magnitude larger than the 37:1 from the butterfly project you mentioned, and one order of magnitude larger than Mad Max's 250:1.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
"Apparently the script has been in the works for 3 years and is highly polished"
I have read childrens books to my four year old that have had more words than the first three movies combined. What can there be to polish?
A big fan of all 3 Mad Max Films eh?
You also like to compare apples, oranges and lemons?
Remember that at the end of "Road Warrior" it is revealed that the feral kid grows up to be the leader of the tribe that escapes to the coast, and he narrates the last part of the movie. So it wouldn't be out of the question for Max to run into the feral kid again, except as the grown up leader of the group that so cleverly used him to make their escape.
-- thinkyhead software and media
No one deserves 25 million? Thats the most presumptious crap I ever heard.
These actors/actresses spend months away from family and friends on shoots, they spend decades learning their trade (anthony hopkins for an example). They deal with constant press pressure, they have MAJOR expenses in the form of security gaurds because of death threats and stalkers.
Mel also produces and directs most of the movies he is in.
These people deserve the money a hell of a lot more than the fat cat do nothing all day CEO's of HP and WorldCom who cook the books and take 5 hour lunches every day to shoot the shit with other crooked execs.
The elitists are those who claim they deserve the cash more than the ones doing all the work. Sitting in front of a typewritter all day is hardly grueling labor. Guys like Mel do their own stunt work, they do lots of physical acting, tons of travel not to mention the extremely hard work they are put through in promoting the movie.
You sir are the one who knows nothing about the film industry. Scripts are a dime a dozen. There are only so many ways you can tell the same story, but acting them out is a far more intricate and challenging proffession.
Good actors save films. There are plenty of badly written movies saved entirely by the cast, look at the majority of the Star Trek movies for this. Look at Ransom starring Mel Gibson. I could give you a list as long as my arm, but I'm pretty sure it still wouldn't convince an elitist prick like you.
Now take a walk.
I saw a Mad Max replicar at a Ford show outside of Portland, OR this summer. VERY shiny. If I had any pictures scanned, I would link them.
<gratuitous link>
Instead, gaze at the wondrous beauty that is the 1974 Capri--slightly, ahem, used. =)
Or get attacked by some guy with a doll attached to a pole strapped to his back that just doesn't know how to DIE!
oh god please no, no no no nooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Speaking of I'm still waiting for Spaceballs II: The search for more money. It has to be better than Star Wars Episode 2: The search for more money.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
It can't be much worse than Episode II.
:P
Come on. Geeks love movies where stuff blows up. It'll have fire & explosions. Exploding stuff is cool.
And for those that don't pay $5 to see a matinee, there's always KazAa.
See the comment "Profit to cost ratios" above; Mad Max made 250 times the orignal investment.
After reading all the articles about the MPAA, I think I can explain the $80.2 million discrepancy.
It's the post-production costs of the accountants tracking the revenue and the salary paid to the studio execs and MPAA execs to dissipate said revenue in support of the industry (read bonuses and wild parties) that suck up all the profit. Can I be a Hollwood consultant now (or do I know too much)?
I think the reference was that the movie industry says all their films barely break even, no matter how the movie actually does.
Senator: Why is it that you think we should give you vigilante abilities to hunt down pirates, at your own discression?
Movie Exec: Because, Senator! As you can see by our numbers, we're barely breaking even! Chinese street vendors have our movies before they are made and are killing us, even though we don't have a market in China! Without vigilante powers, we won't be able to stay in business much longer. It is our God given right to stay in business, no matter what!
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
The chain in those handcuffs is high tense metal steel. It will take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. Now If you're lucky... you could hack through your ankle in 5 minutes.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
Gen X: mid-60's to mid-70's
Gen Lost: mid-70's to mid-80's
Gen TV: mid-80's to mid-90's
Gen "I don't give a f&(#, I want everything I want RIGHT NOW!": mid-90's to current
--CypherDragon
^_^
Sandy Squirrel and Spongebob Squarepants
So when you draw the heart on a tree or scrawl it in the bathroom, it's S.S. + S.S., which looks real confusing.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
There was that one episode where S.Bob and Patrick were fighting in a wrestling match and then hugged at the end when they realized they were wearing matching boxers. They touched each other's asses, crying.
It's corrupting America's youth, I say! Excellent...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
They should make it in IMAX !!!
Then she'd have a hand up over Lara Croft. Hell, all girls from Texas are lookers, you know that.
This phenomenon is widespread. Cartoons are just as accessable any hottie movie or recording star... they aren't! So the obsession has nothing to do with "getting out". The possibilities of realizing the fantasy are of the same magnitude.
Hell, most guys find me attractive for no reason at all. I'm NOT REAL!!!! Oedipus complex I guess. I'm a mental fuck toy for the whole otaku crowd. So the cartoon squirrel, that's not even a stretch.
I'd be more worried about obsession with REAL inanimate objects, like automobiles, stereo equipment, or pies and canned meats.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Going along with the Spaceballs theme, would this be:
Mad Max 4: The Search for More Money?
Some years ago, a friend of mine dragged me backstage at a major rock concert during setup, and I was hearing how the show had two sets of equipment and props, leap-frogging each other from city to city, with one group in setup while another was in teardown. I was talking to one of the promoter's financial people, and said, "So why not have two sets of musicians. Cats has two road companies. Barnum and Bailey Circus has two units. There have been rock groups where, over time, all the members of the band were replaced. And nobody can see those guys on stage (this was in a football stadium, and before big-screen projectors) anyway. Your costs will go up by only 20-30%, but revenue will double." He looked very thoughtful for a while.
Someday, Clear Channel will probably pull this off.
The new movie better not be dubbed into "American English" prior to release over in the states, like the first Mad Max. Australian english isn't that bloody hard to understand! Hands up whose seen the original Aussie version?
Will Jar-Jar be in this?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This'll be just like Terminator 3...
.... "Ach, my back!"
Instead of "I'll be back."
Or do we need to start the whole discussion again?
This may be the end of the world coming on. Road Warrior was my introduction to all things good. I watch it at least once a week....(Mad Max about once a month -- and I throw thunderdome in every few months.) No other movie announcment could make me happier. Will we live to see it complete?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
I believe Kraftwerk did this a few decades ago... They were an entirely electronic band, and would give "live" performances with just automatons on stage. Good Stuff!!
:-(
"I am the operator / with my pocket calculator"
oops, I am indicating my age...
here's the problem that i see with "polished"
I jsut got back from disney land a few hours ago.
Here is my take on the "polishing" of Disneyland:
it used to be a theme park. you would go there, eat some candy - ride some rides - and see a few charcters that you loved from disney cartoons.
now space mountain is "brought to you by FedEX" and there are fedex adds all through out the line in the add - and the ride actually exits you right into a store (as does star tours - which is brought to you by enegizer - and there are energizer bunny ads on the walls.)
coca-cola is everywhere. they sell McDonalds from the McDonalds chuck wagon in frontier land. Disney Downtown is a shopping complex and the strollers.
It was an army of families with strollers and nothing but advertisments.
I took my wife there as she had never been before - and it was my birthday. I thought it would be fun for her first time - and a throwback to the more than 15-20 years since I had been there as a kid. BIG mistake. I wont even take our soon to be kids there.
So much for the polished idea of a theme park.
just because something was good years ago - does not mean that any amount of polishing on the idea is going to make it good now. The idea of Disneyland no longer exists. the idea that a good movie from the early 80's can get a decent attempt at a sequel of any number in this day and age without product placement and mechandising rights and affiliations is about as slim.
That's why so many violent action movies are being made. Basic themes of violence, revenge, and sex resonate with all people in all cultures. So these movies are a sure hit everywhere in the world no matter what -- language and other cultural factors don't matter. Everyone can understand them, from uptight Scandinavian PhD's to spearchucking bushmen. No matter how much they cost to make, they eventually make money. Add to that the potential for violent video games based on them, plus merchandising, and the profits can be truly enourmous. Not to mention the generations of college students who will rent them to "laugh at" how "bad" they are, pretending to have some higher-level sense of "irony"...
Overrated?
Seems you don't know a thing about the film business you're part-time part of.
Its the actors that bring in the viewers.
The viewers bring in the money.
Thus the actors are a lot more important (in bottom-line terms) than the directors, producers, editors, cinematographers, screenwriters, though the film as such may be a team effort and may involve more work from other people than from the actors. Even if the film would look and feel the same with a different actor, its the actor (in the case of films with A-list actors) that gets the butts in the seats.
There are some directors and producers that have name value and are 'bankable' (Lucas, Spielberg) but their value is less than that of actors. 'Bankable' means that if you have Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford or De Niro (A-list) in a film, you (producer) can count on getting the money you threw at the film back. That's why the A-list actors get paid so much.
Or in slashdot friendly terms:
1) Get Tom Cruise,
2) Make film with Tom Cruise,
3) Profit.
Of course stage 2.5 which involves a bad script, bad directing and bad filming could get in the way of 3) but most film studios are pretty competent in avoiding making 'bad' films except where religion (Battlefield Earth), ego (Waterworld) or idiocy (Showgirls) overrule the clever people in studio accounting and preproduction.
If you still don't agree with me, check out the film posters. Whose name is written in the largest font? And why?
Of course Mad Max, as it was released in Australia, was in Australian. IIIRC, it was released for the drive-in circuit in the US, and they thought rednecks needed to have it dubbed into yank, and retitled ("Road Warrior") so as to make it more easily digestible.
When in Hong Kong I saw it on TV I was gobsmacked. Most of the cast are well-known Aussie character actors, and to hear some American voice-over artist messing up their delivery was painful and humiliating.
And dare I say, Mel 2002 isn't worth 1/50 of a Mad Max.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Mad Max - Segway Warrior
:-D )
Opening scene - Max "roaring" down the road on his super-charged Segway surrounded by hoards of baddies. We see Max being hit multiple times, reeling from the shock of each blow, but he just keeps going.
Baddie #1 - Curse that Segway, if we could just knock Max down we'd be able to ravage the orphanage and take over that oil refinery...
(You can take it from there though I recommend that you don't.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Not Squirrel, Cheeks.
Yes, I have 3.5 children.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Wimpy, who was addicted to hamburgers (a stand-in for alcohol in those more sensitive times).
Those more sensitive times? You're saying it's imaginable, today, to have a popular kids' cartoon where being a drunk is funny? If anything we'd be much quicker to find that offensive now, wouldn't we? (Dick Van Dyke used to do a great drunk on his show, very funny -- until he got sober in real life.)
Spongebob Squarepants, who epitomizes and glorifies chronic laziness and disrespect for authority...
Spongebob squarepants ain't an influence on Generation X, and I'm having trouble thinking of who you mean by "like" spongebob for them. If you wanted a weird choice to do with the drug culture, you might have chosen "H.R. Puffinstuff" -- now THERE was a thinly veiled drug reference, huh? As far as "obviously gay" fictional characters, the first one I can remember was Monroe on a lame sitcom called Too Close for Comfort... hardly a huge cultural milestone, and not much of a formative role model for anyone really.
The Mad Max movies were okay fun -- they did have a low budget thing going on at first, and I sort of dread sitting through what's sure to be a lavish, CGI-beefed reprise. But cultural belleweathers they aren't. If this one sucks, it'll be because it got made for money rather than fun.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.