2015 promises to be a big year for movies, with some predicting box office returns of the all-time record variety. Indeed, any one of these three movies has the potential to break $1.5 billion worldwide.
Avengers: Age of Ultron Jurassic World Star Wars: The Force Awakens
And it's not out of the realm of possibility to see $2 billion+ from Avengers and Star Wars. Throw in new installments of the James Bond (Spectre, Hunger Games (Mockingjay, Part 2) and Fast/Furious (Furious 7) franchises, and this year is shaping up to be lucrative indeed.
But while the first Avengers was good fun, and I've been an occasionally reluctant Star Wars fan since my mom got me out of 2nd grade early to see it on its theatrical run, the 2015 movie I'm most excited about isn't listed above, it's Mad Max: Fury Road, the fourth movie in the series and the first in 30 years.
Admittedly, a large part of my enthusiasm results from the fact this movie ever got made at all. We'll be seeing Marvel and Bond movies until Hillary Clinton's granddaughter is elected President, and Disney buying Star Wars means they'll keep producing Episodes (n+1) up to the heat death of the universe, but the 4th Mad Max — while never officially dead — was in the film development equivalent of hospice care for a while. Consider the timeline:
2000 — Original Max Mel Gibson and Miller express confidence in another installment.
2003 — Miller declares that a script is written, and filming was set to begin that year. Unfortunately, concerns about filming in Namibia (the 2003 Gulf War damaged more than just our relationship with the French) causes production to shut down.
2007 — Gibson declares the film dead. His career would soon follow.
2009 — Miller announces Fury Road will be an animated 3D feature film.
2009 — Scratch that; location shooting is underway and filming will begin at Broken Hill, New South Wales in 2011.
2010 — Tom Hardy is announced as the new Max. Charlize Theron is cast as "Furiosa."
2011 — Filming moves back to Namibia because unprecedented rains in Australia turned the hellish Broken Hill desert into a verdant meadow filled with wildflowers.
Since the first trailer for Fury Road dropped, I've avoided as much pre-release info as possible, but allow me to share a few of the reasons I'm GETTING' HYPED.
No Doubting Thomas Tom Hardy starred in two of the best movies of 2014 (The Drop and Locke), and has been consistently excellent ever since I first saw him in Layer Cake, where I first saw him (I'm selectively omitting This Means War from my calculations). If Fury Road doesn't make this guy a bigger star than Channing freaking Tatum, then we have failed as a species.
