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After weeks of breathless speculation as to who would be riding George Miller's bleak highways of Mad Max: Fury Road, there's been a conformation. Variety reports that Charlize Theron has boarded the film, but that it'll be Tom Hardy (Bronson) who takes over the coveted lead. The script is being kept under tight wraps, so we still don't know if Mad Max: Fury Road will be a reboot or a sequel. Speculation has been rampant for more than twenty years, and as is the case with so many revived franchises, we'll probably end up being terribly wrong. Hopefully for the better.

So, we only know that Hardy is playing "the male lead. Will it be the Mad Max, made so iconic by Mel Gibson? Or will Max have taken on some kind of mythological, Robin Hood like status in the barren wasteland, and someone simply takes on the title? It could go either way (but hopefully not the way of Kevin Costner's The Postman), and I'm excited that Hardy has the part. He's been one of those actors lurking under The Really Big Time, and this could be the film that pushes him into stardom.

Theron's role might be the biggest and coolest surprise. She's a big enough name that I can't believe she'll be shoved into a corner as The Wife of Mad Max. Will she be a post-apocalyptic warrior too? I hope so. With so few remnants of humanity left, you need all the badasses you can get. It would be nice to see that reflected beyond Tina Turner.

Advance word on the amazing action in George Miller's The Road Warrior in 1982 was amazingly strong, even without Internet movie sites. When The Road Warrior did rampage on American movie screens, lo, the destructive path was indeed very broad and thrilling, unsuspecting audiences collectively dropped their jaws, and Mel Gibson was firmly cemented as an "A" list star.

The Road Warrior was, of course, a sequel to Miller's Mad Max, also starring Gibson, but that amazing adrenaline-fueled movie was relegated to drive-ins and Gibson's voice, deemed "too Australian," was ignominiously dubbed into "American" by another actor. The third movie in the series, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, was a bit of a letdown, though it definitely had its moments, and is probably best remembered for Tina Turner's appearance. Gibson went on to a huge career for many years, while director Miller moved on to family-friendly fare like Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet.

Just when it was looking like No Country for Old Men had a monopoly on successful interpretations of Cormac McCarthy's drearily minimalistic prose, production on an adaptation of The Road suggests the possibility of healthy competition. The movie, which recently finished shooting in Pennsylvania and hits theaters in November, remains a wild card until post-production wraps. Nevertheless, if this colorful report from the set in The New York Times offers any indication, The Road appears poised to capture McCarthy's original gloomy lyricism. Reporter Charles McGrath points out the difficulties the filmmakers endured when the weather got too nice and the grass looked too green. In other words, they're working really hard to keep things bleak. The story, about a father and son wandering through desolate landscapes after a cataclysmic event destroys civilization, demands that the dark aura remain intact. However, it wouldn't work without two strong leads, and McGrath implies that with Viggo Mortensen and eleven-year-old Kodi Smit-Mcphee (the next Haley Joel Osment?), that need has been fulfilled.

The best match for The Road, however, is its director, John Hillcoat, whose work on The Proposition proves he's the man for the job. That woefully undervalued western had the intensity of a Sam Peckinpah movie in overdrive, and The Road screams for the same raw, stripped-down approach. It's nice to hear that Hillcoat sees the movie as an antithesis to Mad Max, meaning he wants to eschew cartoony violence in order to create a scarily realistic depiction of post-apocalyptic duress. Bring it on.

[Photo above: Kodi Smit-Mcphee on the set of The Road, courtesy of the New York Times]

Now that John McClane, Rocky Balboa and John Rambo have made their return to the big screen -- with Indiana Jones on his way -- the question seems pretty obvious: Who will be the next 1980s action hero to come out of retirement and enjoy one last explosion of mindless mayhem and crazy carnage? I have a few suggestions...

Marion "Cobra" Cobretti (Cobra, 1986) -- After the original First Blood, Stallone went a little insane and not only directed the hilariously bad Staying Alive ... he also starred opposite Dolly Parton in Rhinestone. So obviously it was time for A) Rambo 2, B) Rocky 4, and a powerfully mindless cop flick called Cobra. It grossed only about $50 milion, but that's pretty solid in 1986 money. Oh, and Stallone's subsequent movie? The arm-wrestling one. Other options for Sly: Gabe "Cliffhanger" Walker (which is apparently already in development), Frank "Lock Up" Leone, Lincoln "Over the Top" Hawk ... and (of course) Detective Ray Tango.

"Dirty" Harry Callahan (Dirty Harry, 1971; Magnum Force, 1973; The Enforcer, 1976; Sudden Impact, 1983; The Dead Pool, 1986) -- Pretty damn unlikely, but I'd love to see Dirty Harry polish off the pistol just one last time. Hell, send him after the terrorists! (Another, more realistic wish: Clint Eastwood will deliver at least one more western in the vein of The Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider, or Unforgiven.)

With Transformers coming to DVD next week, I was thinking about science fiction -- how it plays on-screen, how it works as a genre and, most importantly, how a big-number budget doesn't mean a high-quality film. But there are plenty of movies to check out if you want a few examples of how a lack of funds doesn't automatically translate to a lack of ideas. For this list, I wanted to concentrate on a more modern set of films - no '50s Ed Wood-style cheapies, nothing deliberately camp (with one exception), nothing that was more concerned with set design and irony than story and ideas (The American Astronaut, Forbidden Zone) and nothing that played more as horror than science fiction. I wasn't able to track down budget numbers for one of the films (The Quiet Earth), but the rest add up to a fairly modest $3 million -- total; even if you assume that The Quiet Earth cost a million dollars, you're still looking at seven amazing films for a very reasonable $4 million. Or, more bluntly, less than Michael Bay spent on slow-mo spray-on-sweat shots of Megan Fox and a urinating robot gag. And, finally, I'm sure there are some great low-budget sci-films I've missed or overlooked or just not seen ... and I'd love to hear about your picks in the comments selection below.

The Quiet Earth (1985)

Striking, unsettling and beautiful, this New Zealand indie takes the basic plot of the '50s end-of-the-world film The World, the Flesh and the Devil and puts a glowing, gorgeous spin on it -- more contemplative than tense, more philosophical than plot-driven. A scientist (Bruno Lawrence) who's been working on an experimental energy source finds that he's ... the last man on Earth. And while he does find two other people wandering the desolate world, he's still forced to try and find himself. Lawrence is impressive -- essentially carrying the first third of the movie -- and Geoff Murphy's direction is full of haunting images and fascinating ideas. Most importantly, The Quiet Earth doesn't come wrapped up with a bow -- you have to actually think about it, and it invites contemplation as firmly as it resists easy conclusions.


Primer (2004)

Made for a reported $7,000, Primer is that rarest of all science fiction films -- a low-budget brain-bender that both demands and rewards repeat viewings. Friends and fellow engineers Shane Carruth (also director, writer, editor, composer, etc, etc. ...) and David Sullivan are working on their own business in their off-hours, and one of their experiments results in a weird statistical anomaly they can't explain -- and, the more they explore it, leads the two to develop a bizarre sort of time machine. The machine is dangerous, it's risky, it's barely understood ... and it works. And pretty soon, you're watching the film as the characters live it -- is what's happening really what's happening now, or is someone else messing with the time stream? And is one of our characters that 'someone else'? Primer takes a simple, tired cliché and extrapolates that idea to every logical illogical conclusion with riveting, dizzying effect.

I guess you have two questions to ask yourself: 1) Do you want the same guy who brought us Happy Feet and Babe directing a Justice League of America film? or 2) Do you want the same guy who brought us the Mad Max trilogy directing a Justice League of America film? I guess it doesn't really matter since we're talking about the same guy here, and if folks like Latino Review are correct, you won't have any say in the decision either. Yup, their sources are saying that George Miller is the frontrunner to helm the Justice League film. It's an odd choice, I know, especially considering the fact that Miller has never worked on a comic-related film (to my knowledge), and that his last two films were animated kiddie flicks. Plus, the final installment in the Mad Max trilogy came out in 1985 (22 years ago for those keeping counting at home), so is this really the guy we want in charge of what could potentially be one of the coolest superhero flicks of all time?

For the uneducated among us, The Justice League of America (or JLA) is a team comprised of all of our favorite DC superheroes, including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, etc... By all accounts, Warner Bros. is intent on making this a live action film, with talk that Christian Bale and Brandon Routh would possibly reprise their pre-existing roles as Batman and Superman for the flick. Last we heard, Kieran and Michele Mulroney were hired to write a script, and Warners was looking for a director. Is that director George Miller? We don't know for sure, but folks claim he's real close to signing on. When I first read the story, I immediately expected an announcement that the JLA movie would be animated, and not live action -- especially considering that Miller has been working in that realm for the past few years. Personally, and I've said this a number of times, the only way this film could truly work is if they did it in badass CGI -- kind of like the recent TMNT film. Get Bale and Routh to voice characters, and you're set. If the Batman and Superman franchises weren't already re-established, I'd say go for the live action. But the way it is now -- with audiences and fans already invested in the storylines playing out in those other films -- why mess with it? Just my two cents. What do you think?

Director George Miller has told the AAP two interesting things: Mad Max 4 is going to happen and Mel Gibson won't be the lead. Miller says frankly that Gibson is now too old and too 'focused on his own films' to reprise the role of Rockatansky, so instead he's going to try to recruit a new, young star for the lead. The AAP also notes that Miller began developing Mad Max 4 before production began on Happy Feet, and now that he's finished with that, he's turning his full attention to the project. "I have a few projects in the pipeline including an animation...but I want to do another Mad Max movie and get stuck back into that," Miller said. "It won't be Mel. He was 21 when he made the first one, now he's a lot older and his passion is for filmmaking and directing. I don't think he is into acting and I don't think he would be interested in being involved at all."

The amusing AAP story also has Miller claiming that he received good career advice from his fellow Aussies Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman -- to not get a big head after his Oscar success with Happy Feet. "I was warned not to inhale too much because you can take it a little too seriously," Miller said. "We didn't expect to win, but it was a good excuse to drink, party and to act like teenagers again." No further details were offered as to the timetables and plans for the Mad Max sequel, but my two cents is that Gibson should return if only for a small role. Is it really Mad Max without Mad Mel?

I don't have to tell you that Mel Gibson has been in the news lately. I have noticed that he photos people are using in the news stories are terribly unflattering. Everyone seems to like using the photos of Gibson with the scary long beard. So I thought I would take a moment to bring us back to an earlier time -- say, the late 1970s -- when Gibson was this good-looking Australian actor who starred in some gritty, cool post-apocalyptic movies: Mad Max (shown above) and its sequel The Road Warrior. (Please, spare me your attempts at humor linking the titles of these movies with Gibson's recent unpleasantness.)

Mad Max, directed by George Miller, is set in Australia in a grim future. Gibson plays a cop out for revenge on a nasty motorcycle gang. I haven't seen the original film, but I saw The Road Warrior in college in 1988 and enjoyed it. At that time, Gibson was still a pretty-boy action/adventure star who'd just hit it big in the first Lethal Weapon movie. If you'd told people then that the actor would someday direct a movie about Christ's life, everyone would have laughed and gone back to arguing about The Last Temptation of Christ. The Road Warrior is one of the only movies Gibson has been involved with that I've liked, along with Chicken Run and (guiltily) Maverick, and the stills from the first two Mad Max movies evoke in me a warm sense of nostalgia for Gibson's early days.