George Miller Shuts Down Rumors That ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ Didn’t Have a Script

A popular theory among the much-heated lore of 2015’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” is that director George Miller, along with co-writers Brendan McCarthy and Nick Lathouris, first approached the movie without a script. In a series of recent tweets over the past week, McCarthy shut down the rumor by calling it “made-up bollocks,” and now director Miller has separately confirmed to IndieWire that there was most certainly a script.

“I’m not sure how the notion that Fury Road had no script came about. I suppose it’s because of the room lined with storyboards,” Miller said via email, referring to an image of 3,500 storyboards lining the walls of “the ‘Mad Max’ room” that’s been circulated online. “Of course there was a script! How else could we have presented the project to a studio, cast and crew to elicit their interest?”

Yet McCarthy, in his tweets, seemed to attribute the rumor to Miler. “George is a showman who is ‘creative’ with reality and put out the story that there wasn’t any script,” McCarthy wrote. “After I reminded him last time we met, he now refers to a ‘written document’ in interviews… The final screenplay was put together after the storyboards wrapped up.” McCarthy also posted a picture of the “document” dated July 30, 1999. Asked if he considered McCarthy a co-writer on the project, Miller said that was “very, very accurate.”

“Fury Road” is back in the news with the recently announced spinoff “Furiosa,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy in the title role originally taken on by Charlize Theron. That film will also indeed have a script, with Miller sharing writing credits with “Fury Road” co-scribe Nick Lathouris. The film has also tapped Marvel favorite Chris Hemsworth and recent Emmy winner and “Watchmen” actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II to star in undisclosed roles.

Eric Kohn contributed reporting.

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