Of all of Mel Gibson’s famous roles, none is probably as recognizable as Mad Max. And yet, with Mad Max: Fury Road, the baton for the character was seemingly passed from Gibson to Tom Hardy. However, there are probably a lot of people who would love to see Gibson return, and while that possibility may have existed in the past, Gibson himself believes that too much time has gone by.
Speaking with the New Indian Express, Gibson, who just had his most high-profile role in years in the John Wick spinoff series The Continental, was asked if there was any chance he might play Mad Max again. While the actor said that there had been conversations with director George Miller about that possibility, the actor believes he’s officially too old to play Mad Max. Gibson said…
I’ve spoken to George [Miller], and at one point I was going to be involved, but I’m a bit old for that now.
There was a time, years before Mad Max: Fury Road actually happened, when Gibson and Miller had apparently talked about doing another Mad Max movie. It’s unclear if Gibson is talking about a conversation from years ago or something more recent, but either way, it seems Gibson feels too much time has passed so making a new Mad Max doesn’t make sense.
At this point, it seems that when and if George Miller makes another Mad Max movie at all, it’s still going to be many more years away. Lately, Miller has been at work on the Furiosa, the prequel spinoff to Fury Road. It has been in development basically since the last movie came out, and a Furiosa release date is currently set for next May. If Mel Gibson is too old to play Max now, that’s certainly going to be the case in a few years when another movie in the franchise might happen.
Miller himself had previously said that bringing Mel Gibson back after recasting the role with Tom Hardy, even if he played a different role, would pull people out of the movie, so he indicated that seeing Gibson return in any sort of cameo was off the table.
But who knows, at this point, it’s far from clear we’ll actually see Tom Hardy as Max after a single outing. While George Miller has previously said he had ideas for other Mad Max projects, a lot has happened since then. Maybe some sort of an “Old Mad Max”-style project, starring Gibson as an older Max who has somehow survived the wasteland into old age, is an idea that could spark interest. For many, Mel Gibson will always be Max, and that means there’s an audience that would likely pay money to see him be Max again.