First look–Mad Max returns to the open desert in Fury Road

First there was Mad Max in 1979. Then Road Warrior in 1981, the film that put Mel Gibson on the international stage. And the trilogy was complete with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985. Or so we thought. Is another Mad Max movie the sign of the Apocalypse? How about a Mad Max movie minus Mel Gibson, but with Tom Hardy in an origin story for the villain Bane from The Dark Knight Rises? No, that’s not right. Hardy just gets to wear another mask like Bane’s. His agent must really like Tom Hardy in that mask. Check out the first trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road after the break and you’ll see what we mean.

And is it the Apocalypse or post-Apocalypse? Will we get to see just what turns our world into the Australian desert wasteland where only those with 40-year-old muscle cars survive? Mad Max Rockatansky (yep, that’s really the character’s last name) is an Australian ex-cop facing a future world that is as bleak as any post-apocalyptic franchise has envisioned. This time he is joined by a rough and tough Charlize Theron.

At its release it will have been 30 years since we last saw Mad Max meet Tina Turner’s Auntie Entity at Bartertown’s Thunderdome. But George Miller is still making movies and after decades of stops and starts the movie is just around the corner.

Just when you thought all the franchises of the past had been rebooted and jump-started… check out this first trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road, straight from its premiere last weekend at Comic-Con: