New ‘Mad Max’ film stalled by legal battle between filmmakers and Warner Bros
Mad Max writer and director George Miller, is locked in a bitter court battle with Warner Bros that threatens plans to make two more movies in the popular action series.
The Sydney Morning Herald notes that “Three years after the fourth Mad Max movie was released to widespread acclaim – nominated for 10 Oscars including best picture and director and winning six – the director’s production company, Kennedy Miller Mitchell, has claimed in a document filed in the Supreme Court of NSW that the studio acted in a ‘high-handed, insulting or reprehensible’ manner.”
At the root of the dispute is bonus earnings due Miller for delivering the film under budget, $157 million.
Miller claims he delivered the film for $154.6 million, but Warner Bros argues it cost $30 million more due to changes to the film. The studio is disputing who was responsible for these late changes, blaming Miller’s company for the additional expense, saying it did not give written approval.
While the studio asked for an alternative ending, it says it did not insist on it.
The Herald explains it this way:
Warner Bros alleged that instead of a 120-minute movie that was rated R in the US – MA 15+ in Australia – the contract required the company to make a 100-minute movie that was rated no harder than PG-13.
And Kennedy Miller Mitchell claimed it only found out that Warner Bros had brought on the James Packer-Brett Ratner-founded Ratpac and Dune Entertainment as co-financiers when it was directed to give an executive producer credit to Steven Mnuchin, now the US Secretary of the Treasury in the Trump administration.
So, while the big wigs at Warner hash this out with Miller, the clock keeps running. Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron move with exciting projects, such as Venom for Hardy and Atomic Blonde 2 for Theron.
