Everybody knows that Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy are the only two actors to have played Mad Max on the big screen – but Furiosa secretly added a third actor to that list. Fury Road was trapped in development hell for two decades, with director George Miller being able to generate two other screenplays and even consult on a Mad Max game during that time. Furiosa began life as an anime spinoff, but before evolving into a live-action prequel following Fury Road’s success.
What’s unique about the Mad Max movie franchise is how loose the continuity is. Trying to map out a coherent timeline among the movies is a ticket to despair, and the canon status of the video game was always shaky. It was believed to be a standalone tale that was pulled from the films without being truly connected to them. That all changed with the release of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga in 2024, as the Anya Taylor-Joy starring prequel taking some key characters from the game.
The Mad Max game, released in 2015, was initially met with controversy over the character of Max having an American accent. However, developers Avalanche Studios took this feedback to heart and cast Australian actor Bren Foster to voice Max. Foster is an actor and martial artist, who at the time was known for appearing in Steven Seagal movies like Maximum Conviction. Furiosa would later confirm the game and Foster’s take on Max is canon, thanks to the appearance of Scabrous Scrotus, Immortan Joe’s son, in both.
Scrotus had only appeared in the game previously, with no mention of him having been made in Fury Road. However, Josh Helman had a major supporting role as Scrotus in Furiosa, which suggests the game took place between the 2024 prequel and Fury Road; this would also explain his absence in the latter film. Furiosa also featured a cameo from Chumbucket, the mechanic who aids Max in the video game. Despite his dislike of the 2015 spinoff, Miller apparently still considered its story somewhat canonical.
Foster’s Max is still plenty Mad, capturing the gruffness and underlying melancholy of the character. It’s still strange to think of the game as linking directly to Fury Road, though, as Hardy’s Max is a good deal more feral and anti-social than either Gibson or Foster’s take. Bren Foster may not have gotten a chance to place Mad Max on the big screen, but his vocal performance really captures the gruffness and underlying melancholy of the character.
It should be noted that the movies and games don’t perfectly align – but it does slot in quite neatly as a midquel between Furiosa and Fury Road. Of course, fans are free to pick and choose what they consider canon, as Miller has always had a loose relationship with the Mad Max timeline.
