Mel Gibson should have had his "Han Solo" moment in this

Yeah well maybe Miller wanted someone younger. It happends. This, or Gibson might have denied the role. Either way, I don't have a problem with Hardy taking over the role. Hardy is the prime example of a face that always looks pissed off. Perfect for a character called "Mad" Max.

On another hand, I would had taken Gibson again without any hesitation. He was a perfect fit as well. But if he was refused for the reasons you mentioned, well he kinda had it coming. A bad reputation can kill a career, and he is far from being the only person in Hollywood affected by this. This is what happens when you are a celibrity: your actions are well known by pretty much anyone who bothers reading some celebrity magasines. So, as ridiculous as it may sound, your mistakes become a public concern.

So yeah, poor Mel, he used to be such a promising actor.

Yeah, I agree. I thought Miller blew a great opportunity to create a new character -- played by Tom Hardy -- set in the original Mad Max universe.

In my imagined screenplay, Hardy would have been someone looking for the original Mad Max. In fact, there were rumours for awhile that he was playing the Feral Kid grown to adulthood.

Eventually, he would have either discovered:

i. the remains or grave of the original Mad Max; or

ii. an older, even more cynical, Max who lives a hermit existence, but sacrifices himself to save Hardy and/or another band of survivors, thus exiting the series.

That would have left Miller free to continue the saga as its own stand alone franchise. I originally pitched this idea on the old IMDB forum a few years before Creed essentially did the same thing with the Rocky franchise. And the idea of a new character searching and finding a character from the original movie(s) was used in Bladerunner 2049. I think Hollywood scriptwriters stole my concepts! Any lawyers out there?

Anyway, as it stands now, this one movie is likely to be an outlier. In my mind, it's NOT a Mad Max movie, just another post-apocalyptic action flick.

However, I also heard the rumour that Gibson was offered the role, but turned it down because he considered himself too old. Which makes all of this just a fun bit of speculation. Ironically, during a recent Graham Norton interview, he mentioned that that he has had informal discussions with Danny Glover and Richard Donner about doing another Lethal Weapon.

Dude STFU....it was a great movie. The best Mad Max ever. A reboot...go cry to mama you big baby. Mel DIDNT want to do it. He said so. This Mary Sue Bullshit is dumb. Ever since Rey from Star Wars crybabies like you can't stand strong female characters....🙄🙄🙄

I agree 100% percent. The new Mad Max franchise is obviously all about Furiosa (Charlize Theron), so why not simply write Max out of the franchise altogether. As you said, the best, most fitting way to do this would have been to bring back the legendary Mel Gibson to play an elderly Max one last time and have him die a heroic death. This would have cleared the way for Furiosa to become the undisputed new focus of the franchise.

agreeds.

it would have saved us from the awful charlise theron, who could not lead film if life depend on it.

Also the character was written to be older beaten down by his history and that was the only issue with this film. Hardy didn't look like he had that history to destroy him, Mel would've been perfect for this.

Had Mel been in Fury Road id have most likely gone to see it twice (and I never go to cinema twice since about Star Trek 2009) and bought the bluray first day of release at full price (instead of waiting a couple of years to get cheap on ebay)

Id have probably been abit happier back then too, just smiling more and feeling good, knowing that Mel was back on cinema screens (as Mad Max) in an awesome Mad Max movie

The Mad Max 4 script that George Miller and Mel Gibson were working on around 2000-2004 that Gibson was so excited about that he said "We've got to get this made as soon as we can George before I'm 50" would've ended with Max joining Furiosa and been lifted up to the citadel with her. It would've been a perfect finish for the Mad Max character and for Mel's final outing in the role.

Going from losing his family in the original, slowly regaining a touch of humanity but ultimately still a cynical loner in the second, still not been able to embrace a community in the third because he had to leave the oasis but proved he'd progressed into a selfless hero at the end by getting the kids away, to meeting Furiosa in the fourth, (with Gibson doing it obviously it would've been more of a father/daughter type relationship ), and finally, properly re-joining humanity again and embracing a new family.

It would've been a really powerful and emotional moment with Gibson in the role. But sadly it wasn't to be.