The "Mad Max" rumor mill evolved into a flat-out fact-churning factory over the weekend thanks to words from director George Miller, who spoke with news outlets about progress on the fourth installment in the franchise.

The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Miller, who said that "Fury Road" — the upcoming "Mad Max" sequel's title — would make New South Wales in Australia a very desirable filming location for big blockbusters, likely due to its reported $100 million budget. Read more...

This is purely a premature news bite. In a recent interview with his hometown newspaper, The Modesto Bee, "The Hurt Locker" star Jeremy Renner mentioned that he’s “fighting” to get a role in a new “Mad Max” movie. Renner says that he’s screen testing and taking a meeting with director George Miller for the gig, though he shares no specifics on what character he’s up for.

Given his rising status in Hollywood, it’s likely that Renner is looking to nab the lead in the fourth installment of the “Max” franchise, which reportedly will not feature original star Mel Gibson. Still, it’s not even completely known what the next installment of the series will be like. Back in May, we shared the news that Miller is prepping for the sequel, with location scouting and a tentative start planned for the end of the year. Read more...

This morning brings with it word from - where else? - an Austrailian newspaper (via AICN) that director George Miller is preparing to start work on a fourth "Road Warrior"/"Mad Max" movie. The story in Australia's Herald Sun reveals that location scouting is already underway, and that shooting could start as early as later this year.

Miller has already dismissed the possibility of Mel Gibson reprising his role in previous interviews, though between Leonard Nimoy in "Star Trek" and Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Terminator Salvation," cameos are very quickly becoming the hot way to expose your celebrity status without too much of a time commitment. Gibson, who has had his share of public relations troubles in the recent past, could probably use a boost from a fan community which fondly remembers a time before the actor got all serious. Read more...

It was early in 2003 and Australian writer/director George Miller was gearing up to begin shooting the fourth “Mad Max” movie almost two-and-a-half decades after the last one hit theaters. Mel Gibson was set to reprise the role that made him a star and filming was to begin in Namibia. Then the United States went to war in Iraq, and everything fell apart.

Miller, however, has never given up his dream of restarting the project. “You would think I would be done with ‘Mad Max’ by now, but once you let those stories creep into your mind they keep going around in your head,” he told MTV News.

One thing Miller has given up on is his leading man, who turned 53 in January. “The ideas we have for live action are very physical. The stories are pretty physical. It’s not like ‘Unforgiven,’ about an older person.” In other words, Mel, no one wants an elderly Max fighting freaks with one hand and popping Advil with the other. Read more...

Good ol’ Mad Max: post-apocalyptic gun-slinger with a need for blood-thirsty revenge! MTV News’ #4 Movie Badass of All Time! And...star of a 3-D anime feature film?!

Unlikely as that last one sounds, some big screen animated “Max” action is shaping up to become a reality, according to George Miller, the writer/director of the previous three films. The catch? He doesn’t want Max himself, Mel Gibson, anywhere near the project.

“We'll probably go a different route,” Miller told MTV News about the potential talent voicing the lead role. The plot would be partly lifted from the script of the fourth “Max” film, which was set to shoot in 2003 until financing collapsed in the wake of the Iraq War. Read more...

Brad Pitt must have really liked going Greek for "Troy" because he's now interested in tackling Homer's other great epic, "The Odyssey." According to Variety, he's teaming with director George Miller and Warner Bros. to bring the epic poem to outer space, with Pitt playing the title role of Odysseus in a re-imagining of the classic fable.

If you escaped high school and college without reading "The Odyssey," here's a refresher -- it's technically a sequel to "The Iliad," dealing with the aftermath of the Trojan War. It's centered around the return journey of Odysseus, the most clever of Greek soldiers and the builder of the famous Trojan horse. All he wants to do is get home to his wife and son, but he's constantly waylaid by sexy sea-nymphs, witches, cyclops, and monsters. Read more...