The series has also had a significant impact on popular culture, most notably apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and encompasses works in additional media including video games and comic books.
In 2016, Fury Road became the first film of the Mad Max franchise to receive Academy Award recognition, winning six of its ten nominations.
In the timeline of the original three films, the 1979 oil crisis caused by the Iranian Revolution worsened, leading to worldwide energy shortages and unrest.
Tensions boiled over when Iranian forces attacked Saudi Arabia, igniting a massive war in the Middle East and around the world.
In a dystopian Australia where the government no longer has the capacity to effectively protect its citizens, Max Rockatansky is a skilled policeman trying to keep order on the highways.
Isolated pockets of civilisation remain, desperately preserving remnants of pre-apocalyptic technology, especially oil refineries (Mad Max 2, Furiosa, Fury Road).
By the time of Beyond Thunderdome, Furiosa, and Fury Road, society has devolved into a barter economy, with chattel and sex slavery being widespread.
Mad Max films typically highlight their protagonists' struggle to reclaim their humanity in a dystopian wasteland that has taught them to place little value on kindness and decency.
"[5]) Miller "sees Mad Max as a series of legends about the titular character, the kinds of campfire stories that might be passed around in the Wasteland at dark.
Max, now wandering through the post-apocalyptic wasteland, meets a community of oil drillers trying to defend itself against a roving band of marauders.
The film follows an archetypal "Western" frontier movie motif, as does Max's role as a hardened man who rediscovers his humanity.
[12] Miller explained that the Mad Max films "effectively look forward to the past ... in the same way that the American Western allowed for allegory figures playing out morality tales in a landscape.
"[13] This sequel to Miller's Mad Max was a worldwide box office success that further boosted the career of Mel Gibson.
In this film, Max is still wandering through the wasteland, civilisation has shifted to a barter economy, and gladiatorial combat is a key source of entertainment.
Miller initially lost interest in the project after his friend and producer Byron Kennedy was killed in a helicopter crash, but he later agreed to move forward with the assistance of Ogilvie.
The film spent many years in development hell; Mel Gibson was attached to return as Max in 2003, but the production fell through.
[16] Location scouting resumed in 2009,[17] but production was delayed until June 2012 due to unusually high levels of rain, which caused vegetation to grow in the Australian desert, detracting from the post-apocalyptic feeling that Miller wanted.
[7] The film stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa and Chris Hemsworth as her adversary, the warlord Dementus; in addition, Jacob Tomuri portrays Mad Max in a cameo appearance.
[62] Mad Max is a 1990 video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System developed by Gray Matter and published by Mindscape.
It is based on the film Mad Max 2, with the object of the game is to survive life in the post-apocalyptic world by battling survivalists and collecting resources.
[65] After viewing an advance showing of Furiosa, Kojima wrote on Twitter that he had been a fan of the franchise since he saw the first Mad Max film when he was sixteen.
"[66] Mad Max: Fury Road is a limited comic book series created by George Miller, Nico Lathouris, and Mark Sexton.
Reception of the series has been mixed; some consider it unnecessary and poorly executed, and many harshly criticised the issue centred on Imperator Furiosa.