Hollywood’s Most Unlikely Blockbuster Franchise

The Mad Max franchise is one of the more improbable successes in Hollywood history. It began in 1979 as an original, one-off, low-budget exploitation flick written, directed, and produced by first timers. The cast were no-name locals from a country on the other side of the world, and it featured an anti-hero who arrives at a bleak conclusion devoid of salvation or redemption. Nonetheless, Mad Max would become a 45-year-old cinematic juggernaut, spawning a franchise that has only grown in reputation under the control of its visionary creator, George Miller. With each subsequent instalment, Miller’s series has reinvented itself and deepened its dystopian portrait of an alienated world riven by societal breakdown, environmental disaster, and the aftershocks of Armageddon. It achieved this success despite lawsuits, cast changes, and production shutdowns that led to decades-long gaps between films.