It’s hard to imagine any of the characters in 2015’sMad Max: Fury Roadnot making the final cut. But, on the occasion of the movie’s five-year anniversary, directorGeorge Millerhas revealed there was one character almost didn’t make it per feedback from folks at Warner Bros. — and it’s unthinkable which character almost got the boot.
Published earlier this week was aNew York Timesoral history interview, featuring comments from Miller and hisFury Roadcast and colleagues, to commemorate the five-year anniversary of the epic fourthMad Maxmovie. While many of Miller’s memories about makingFury Roadwere included in the official interview, NYT reporterKyle Buchananshared viahis Twitterone anecdote which didn’t make it to print: Warner Bros. wanted Miller and his team to cut the Doof Warrior from the movie.
As Miller told it to Buchanan, “The Doof Warrior tested really badly at first. We had temp music, and whenever the Doof Warrior played in the test screening, it was the same riff, so it got annoying. A couple people at the studio said, ‘Oh, we’ve got to drop the Doof Warrior.’ I said, ‘No no, it’s way too early to even think of that,'” and went on to say that, once the Junkie XL score was added into the movie, the decision to keep the character stuck and Miller was vindicated, recalling how the Doof Warrior “became one of the most popular characters in the film.”
In case you forgot,the Doof Warrior(played by performance artist and musicianiOTA) was one of Immortan Joe’s (Hugh Keays-Byrne) War Boys whose job was playing rock music with his flame-throwing guitar in order to keep his crew members amped. To imagine a movie without the Doof Warrior is basically inconceivable. What, youdon’twant an action movie which features a musician wielding a flame-throwing guitar? The Doof Warrior is one of the most memorable characters fromFury Roadthanks to that guitar moment (which goes largely unaddressed in the movie, by the way) and it’s tough to imagine a version ofFury Roadwhere we just don’t get any Doof moments at all.
For more onFury Road’s five year anniversary, check out Charlize Theron and Tom Hardybreaking down their on-set tensionand Theron recallingwhich powerful Furiosa momentshe came up with herself.
