A Fury Road trip: Exploring the filming locations of ‘Furiosa’
Considering the size of the country, it’s a wonder why Australian cinema isn’t more championed across the world, but while the likes of Baz Luhrmann and Peter Weir have released a number of iconic movies, there is one franchise it will always be closely associated with. Harnessing the barren landscapes of the country’s outback, the Mad Max series has long turned Australia into the home of eccentric cinematic dystopia.
Far different from the kind of dystopias we see in such classic sci-fi flicks as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner or Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta, the adventures of Mad Max take place outside of the city in empty lands where chaos reigns. In attempts to reclaim power over the land, automobiles are considered possessions of great importance, allowing bandits from near and far to rule with an iron fist.
First venturing into the dusty plains in 1979, director George Miller has since made four sequels, with the most recent movie, Furiosa, set for release in 2024. A prequel to his 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road, which earned six Oscars, including a ‘Best Picture’ nomination, fans and critics are hoping that the new film will be able to capture even just a morsel of what made the predecessor so great.
But if the movie’s shooting locations are anything to go by, Miller is dedicated to once again making his trip down the fury road as authentic as possible.
The filming locations of Furiosa:
Broken Hill, New South Wales
The majority of Miller’s latest movie was largely shot in the desert landscapes of Broken Hill, New South Wales, in the Southeast of Australia. A regular fixture of Mad Max movies, the accessible location that can quickly get you to the wastelands of the outback was also used in the production of the very first movie in the franchise as well as the 1981 sequel Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.
With a population of just 17,000, Broken Hill is the longest-running mining town in the country, with the city’s industrial history being the perfect fit for the Mad Max story, which focuses heavily on the desperate search for resources. Known for its boiling heat that has created a scorched desert just outside the city’s borders, the far-reaching flatness of Broken Hill and the wider country ended up becoming a source of great inspiration for Miller.
Speaking to the NSFA about his experience growing up in Chinchilla, Queensland, the director stated: “There’s no question that Mad Max was influenced by my childhood in rural Queensland…completely flat roads, loamy soil, heat haze, burnt land and with a very intense car culture…there was just those long flat roads where there was no speed limit and people would just go”.
Hay, New South Wales
About six hours away from Broken Hill lies Hay, a far smaller town with a population of only around 2,800 people. With astonishingly flat vistas looking over the Australian outback, Hay became the perfect blank slate for Miller and his crew to work with while making Furiosa, with their use of the location significantly improving tourism to the otherwise forgotten area of central New South Wales.
Having suffered with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as a devastating drought, the arrival of the production crew in the area significantly boosted the economy, exactly when it was in dire need of an injection of cash. Purposefully avoiding built-up cities for the shoot, aside from a brief portion of the film shot in Melrose Park, Sydney, Miller’s films have a long history of boosting the economies of rural Australian towns.
Silverton, New South Wales
Keeping his business well within the remits of New South Wales, one of Miller’s final stops on his Furiosa shoot was Silverton, a village on the western border of the state, close by to Broken Hill. The location of choice not just for Miller’s Furiosa but a whole host of iconic movies too, including Mission Impossible II and Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Silverton is much loved for its unparalleled landscapes.
Slapped in what feels like right in the centre of the desert, the village feels like it has sprouted up from the earth itself, with its old buildings becoming as part of the landscape as the patchy shrubs and wind-rolled dunes. Indeed, it doesn’t take much imagination to envisage the titular Mad Max or, indeed, Furiosa, exploring the orange-soaked landscape claiming the barren banks as their own.
