The upcoming Borderlands movie, to be directed by Eli Roth, has a similarity to Mad Max: Fury Road, directed by George Miller. In the first three Mad Max movies, Max is the main character. However, with Mad Max: Fury Road, despite still being the titular character, the movie’s plot more closely engages with the story between the female lead, Imperator Furiosa, and the villain, Immortan Joe. At times, Max seems almost as though he is a secondary character in juxtaposition with Furiosa. Primarily, the story is based on the women Furiosa saves from the citadel, and Max does play into the story, but his main function is as an observer.
In the Borderlands movie, Lilith appears to be taking on the lead role. In the game, she is an important character, however perhaps not the most important in the face of the male characters. This choice may have been inspired by the success of Mad Max: Fury Road in comparison to the other films in the series, or even the success of the film in the action genre overall. It is considered to be one of the best, if not, the best action film ever made, despite how it didn’t do particularly well in the box office. In fact, the movie lost money, but was still highly acclaimed by critics.
The film was even nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in the year that it came out. It was nominated for nine other Academy Awards and of those nominations, it won six, including Costume Design, Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Film Editing, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing. So, from the perspective of the Academy, what is really incredible about Mad Max: Fury Road, is the world-building, and the editing. If the Borderlands film wants to be as successful as Mad Max: Fury Road, it should take more from the film’s production than just the notion of a female lead.
Perhaps most important is the lack of a traditional script. Mad Max: Fury Road does follow a plot, but the action comes before everything else, and this information is portrayed almost entirely through visuals. The majority of the storytelling is from non-verbal ideas, and the characters only speak when they have to. So, instead of a traditional script, the film relied on storyboards to portray what would happen on screen. During pre-production, about 3,500 panels were made over the course of two years. All of these storyboards were pasted up on the walls of an office. Subsequently, every aspect of every scene could be broken down visually beat by beat. Other action films generally have parts with the action and parts with the dialogue separate, but in Mad Max: Fury Road, the two coincide.
The Borderlands movie should also attempt to replicate the reliance that Mad Max: Fury Road has on practical effects. Of course, some things in the film are CGI, but a huge number of the effects are practical. Even the people on the poles attached to the moving cars, are really there, on poles, on moving cars. They are Cirque du Soleil trained acrobats. Of course, this needed very careful planning, as if even one small thing didn’t work right, someone on set would be injured, possibly even dead. Some explosions are practical too. In one case, there was a remote-controlled truck built as a prop, and it was driven out to a certain point in the desert and then blown up. And this was filmed in a tracking shot, so it was blown up while it was moving, and with cameras moving around it.
The props and character design are instrumental in building the world of the film, otherwise Mad Max: Fury Road is pretty much just sand. The tools, the costumes, and even the cars are all props made specifically for the world. The film has an incredible attention to detail, and it is so impressive that these ideas are presented with such a limited amount of CGI. The sheer amount of practical effects is what perhaps makes Mad Max: Fury Road such a memorable film, particularly an action film, because so many films of this type with this high of a budget that come out today are almost entirely CGI.
The editing of Mad Max: Fury Road is yet another aspect that makes it stand out from other films. Its main goal is to keep the audience focused on what they need to focus on. There is highly exaggerated sound design, and some scenes are edited with missing frames to make the action seem even quicker and more intense than it already is. The action usually stays in the center of the frame throughout cuts, and when it doesn’t, it leads into the center of the frame.
The color grading was another facet important in building the world. The film was shot almost entirely in Namibia, Africa (and a little bit in Australia) in the middle of a desert. This was because huge amounts of space were required to shoot all the action of the cars driving. Sand is beige for the most part, but the movie is so highly saturated that the sand is bright orange, and the sky is a highly contrasted blue. Interestingly, the scenes that take place at night were actually shot during daylight and then re-colorized to look like night. This way, there was no possibility of action being lost due to dark shooting conditions.
Apparently, George Miller first had the idea for Mad Max: Fury Road while on a flight. The storyboarding process started around 1997, and he attempted to make the film in the early 2000s, but as a result of 9/11, the film was cancelled due to budgeting issues while it was actively in production. Miller started working on other projects, but the movie was always in the back of his mind. It helped that all the storyboards were still on the wall. Finally, in 2009, it was announced that filming would begin again in 2011. At this point, Mel Gibson was no longer interested in the production, and so Tom Hardy was cast as Max. Principal photography was delayed until 2012, and it wasn’t complete until the end of 2013. The film premiered in May of 2015.
The upcoming Borderlands movie certainly won’t take nearly a decade to come to fruition. If the makers of the film do borrow some of the other production elements employed by Mad Max: Fury Road, be it the storyboarded script, the practical effects, the editing style, or hopefully all three, the upcoming film surely will have the capacity to be of a higher critical acclaim than the majority of movies based on video games. Perhaps even the majority of action movies in general.