Since Mad Max 5: The Wasteland has still not even entered pre-production, there is an argument to be made for the post-apocalyptic sci-fi franchise recasting Tom Hardy’s character in the next Mad Max movie. There was a time when recasting Mel Gibson’s original Mad Max would have seemed unthinkable. 1979’s bleak revenge thriller Mad Max was the movie that made Gibson a Hollywood star and the franchise's entire appeal was built around his iteration of the eponymous antihero. However, when Tom Hardy took on the role in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, critics and viewers alike agreed that the actor made the part his own.
It has been seven years since Hardy played Mad Max and there has been little progress on a new Mad Max movie. While the first Mad Max spinoff, the prequel Furiosa, recently wrapped production, this project won’t feature Hardy’s version of Mad Max. Since the movie is a prequel, Furiosa recast Fury Road’s Charlize Theron with the younger Anya Taylor-Joy. This decision, along with the seemingly unending wait between franchise installments, leads to the question of whether or not the franchise should also recast Hardy’s Mad Max. While Hardy’s next Mad Max movie might not be a prequel, The Wasteland will be arriving long after Fury Road and Hardy has already spent longer in the role than Gibson.
Why The Wasteland Is Taking So Long
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There are various reasons for the slow production of Mad Max: The Wasteland. There was a thirty-year gap between the third and fourth Mad Max movies due to difficulties with securing funding and finding a suitable script, and the fact that franchise creator George Miller is focusing on Fury Road’s prequel Furiosa means he has less time to work on the fifth movie in the series. Not only that, but Hardy is a tremendously busy actor who has starred in numerous smaller, more personal projects in the intervening years while also headlining the Venom franchise.
Hardy is also a front-runner for the role of 007, so the actor’s slate is only getting busier with each passing year. This, combined with the fact that Miller is also working on projects outside the Mad Max franchise, means that the long-awaited sequel has been repeatedly pushed off by both parties. While it is likely that Furiosa will fit the Mad Max mythos perfectly in story terms, the success or failure of the spinoff in financial terms will also play a big role in how much funding Mad Max: The Wasteland can acquire. After all, it has been the best part of a decade since Fury Road’s success and that milestone becomes more distant with each passing year.
The Case For A New Mad Max Actor
The main reason for Mad Max: The Wasteland to cast a new actor as Mad Max is the same thing that got Hardy the job in the first place. The franchise needs to keep its formula feeling fresh, and bringing back the same actor almost a decade after their debut doesn’t scream innovation. Hardy’s Fury Road co-star remains a world-famous A-list star and Furiosa still recast Theron to ensure that the prequel didn’t feel like a retread of Fury Road. The spinoff had an obvious excuse for this recasting since Furiosa needed to be younger in the new movie, but it would have been possible to digitally de-age Theron if the filmmakers insisted on her presence.
Not only that, but the assumption that Mad Max: The Wasteland won’t be a prequel might not even be accurate. Nothing is known about the sequel’s story and the Mad Max timeline has always been infamously slippy, so there is no way of knowing whether The Wasteland will pick up before or after Fury Road. As such, it might be necessary for the sequel to recast Hardy to go back in time and explain the timeline of the Mad Max movies. Viewers have never seen how the world ended between Mad Max and its first sequel, and a prequel that focuses on Max himself could illuminate this mystery and much more.
Why Tom Hardy Should Star In Mad Max 5
While it is tempting to imagine a version of Mad Max: The Wasteland that lives up to its title and explains the unseen apocalypse that occurred offscreen between movies, this may not be necessary. Furiosa's plot could cover this backstory, rendering a Mad Max-centric prequel pointless in the process. Not only that, but recasting Hardy’s Mad Max misses out on a big part of Fury Road’s appeal. Despite Theron and Hardy’s struggles during Fury Road’s production, their respective performances elevated the sequel, and it would be tough to find a replacement for Max who viewers find as compelling and engaging as Hardy’s wild-eyed take on the role.
There is a reason that Hardy won over even faithful franchise fans who thought that no one could replace Gibson as Mad Max, and it is because the actor made the most of his brief role in the sequel. Max is emphatically not the main character of Fury Road, yet Hardy still made the character funny, relatable, charming, sympathetic, and appropriately threatening throughout his almost wordless role. This would be a tough act for any actor to follow and, even if an appropriate replacement is found, there is no way to guarantee that viewers will flock to see another new take on Max, especially when Anya Taylor-Joy’s version of Furiosa hasn’t even faced audiences yet.
Does Mad Max 5: The Wasteland Need To Cast A New Mad Max?
Until Furiosa proves that the Mad Max movies can expand their horizons and tell a new sort of story, it is likely best for Hardy to remain as Mad Max in The Wasteland. The actor’s take on the character was as memorably inventive as Gibson’s original version of the role and there is no obvious substitute who could replace him, while the fact that Max can be older in the next movie means there is also no immediate requirement for the creators to recast the role. If Furiosa proves that a prequel explaining the unexplored lore of the franchise could work, however, then a version of Mad Max: The Wasteland set in the character's past could conceivably recast Hardy and revitalize the Mad Max franchise's ambitions in the process.