If you've been wondering - like us - why hasn't George Miller kicked off production on that long-awaited sequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, here's as good an explanation as any.
According to a report by the Sydney Morning Herald, the vaunted Australian director has begun a legal battle with Warner Bros. to recover unpaid earnings on the film. The first ruling on the case was made last week when the Supreme Court of New South Wales found that the case should be arbitrated there rather than in California.
The case boils down to a $7,000,000 bonus that was to be paid out to Kennedy-Miller-Mitchell, the production company founded by Miller, if the final net cost of the film came in under $157 million. Miller's legal team argues that Warner Bros. essentially caused budget overruns by making decisions that led to delays that effected the overall cost of the film. In a statement, Miller and Mitchell said that they "are owed substantial earnings for diligent and painstaking work which spanned over 10 years in development of the script and preparation and three years in production of the movie."
"We would much prefer to be making movies with Warner Bros. than litigating with them but, after trying for over a year, we were unable to reach a satisfactory resolution and have now had to resort to a law suit to sort things out." While it wasn't expressly mentioned in the statement, the lawsuit between Kennedy-Miller-Mitchell and Warner Bros. is likely why the two planned sequels for Mad Max: Fury Road haven't started yet. Just to make it even more exciting / upsetting, one of the sequels is to focus solely on Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron.
It's not clear yet whether the outcome of the lawsuit will directly impact on the status of these films, but considering that they're now in a lawsuit against one another, it doesn't look all that hopeful.
You can read the Sydney Morning Herald's full court report here.
Via Sydney Morning Herald
