MILLER ORIGINALLY PLANNED to make “Fury Road” in Broken Hill, Australia, where he had shot the second “Mad Max” film, “The Road Warrior.” When a freak superstorm turned the red, flat earth there into a flower garden, the production decamped to Namibia, but years later on “Furiosa,” the filmmakers vowed to shoot in Australia, come rain or come shine.
“Furiosa” began filming in spring 2022, and once again, the typically arid region was beset by record storms and flooding. “If we need to stop making films, we could become water diviners,” said the film’s action designer, Guy Norris.
The new reality required contingency plans, additional computer graphics and a lot of improvisation, like moving a huge action sequence from the wet patch of desert it had been earmarked for to a somewhat drier airport runway. “You have to deal with the chaos that comes with filmmaking, and there is a control underneath it,” Mitchell said, “but you sure as hell don’t control much.”
The coronavirus also took a toll on key production members, including Miller, who at one point had to direct the film remotely while stricken. “Two o’clock in the morning, your phone starts ringing: ‘I can’t come to work because I’ve got Covid,’” said Lesley Vanderwalt, who oversaw the film’s extensive hair-and-makeup team. “You were constantly juggling things.”
Though “Furiosa” features fewer action sequences than “Fury Road,” what’s there is enormous: Its centerpiece action scene, which the production dubbed “Stowaway to Nowhere,” took 78 days spread out over nine months. “That was easily one of the most incredible things I’ve ever been a part of, and the hardest thing I’ve ever been a part of,” Taylor-Joy said.
Some 145 vehicles were crafted for the film, including an eye-popping motorcycle chariot for Dementus and an even bigger War Rig than the one Furiosa drove in the previous film. “I was a great fan of the as-real-as-possible” mandate of ‘Fury Road,’” said Gibson, the production designer, who explained that Miller’s expanded sense of scale on “Furiosa” required additional C.G.I. embellishment. As the biker horde led by Dementus swells to the thousands, so do the special effects needed to realize it.
