Start Your Engines

Mel Gibson to star in Mad Max 4? Yes, yes, how many times have we heard that one? Well, it would seem that, after more 'will he, won't he' conversations than we can easily count, the fourth instalment in this post-apocalyptic saga is officially on the move. According to Variety, Gibson is now confirmed to reprise his role as the Road Warrior and will be directed once more by Mad Max helmer, George Miller - his first stint behind the camera since Babe: Pig in the City. Bearing the apt moniker, Fury Road, the fourth film will land Gibson a tidy $25 million and thrust him back into the parched outback of future Australia. Plot details are, predictably, thin on the ground but rumours have speculated that it could be set in the far future (with Gibson possibly playing his own descendent) with the previous film's mutants now become a rampaging menace. For those of you who've had your heads buried in the scorched earth for the past twenty-odd years, Mad Max heralded the arrival of Mel Gibson when it emerged in 1979 with a tale of a futuristic, post-nuclear Australia. The still-green Gibson took on the role of a young cop who, along with his family, is targeted by an unruly gang of bikers after he offs their leader. All dusty, arrid landscapes and endless, shimmering highways, the film boasted some truly excellent freeway showdowns and caused many a punter to subsequently check behind them every time a Vespa drove past. A larger-scale sequel, Mad Max 2 (or The Road Warrior to our American chums) ditched the white-line fever in favour of some Macguyver-esque philanthropy, with Max saving an imperilled settlement from, yup, another biker gang. The final instalment in the original set, Beyond Thunderdome, is at once the most rocking and risible of the three, with Tina Turner boasting implausibly large earrings as the leader of Bartertown, a bizarre midget/giant combination in the form of Master Blaster and, inexplicably, Mel trudging through the desert in a giant papier mache head. Filming on this most anticipated of projects is scheduled to begin in May 2003, once Gibson has completed work on Aramaic biblical epic, The Passion.