Director George Miller’s long awaited re-visitation with his iconic Mad Max franchise – Mad Mad: Fury Road and Mad Max: Furiosa; to be shot concurrently – has been gestating at a very high level for what seems like forever. Mel Gibson was once lined up to reprise his role as the post-apocalyptic badass, with shooting to take place in the Middle East. Then, I don’t know, some stuff happened over there I guess? I don’t really read the global news. Not to mention some stuff happened with Gibson as well, I think? Something with Jews, maybe? But Miller is not a man to be deterred, and eventually the project came back with every guy’s current mancrush, Tom Hardy, with plans to return Max to his old cruisin’ grounds – Australia.

Well, cosmic forces seem to be against the project, because a couple months ago, just as Miller was apparently getting ready to start shooting, rain hit his location (ending a decade-long drought). As Miller told the Daily Telegraph in Sydney, “The week we were to start, it rained the heaviest it had in 10 years. I’ll never forget the first day — we were holed up in a big sort of shed watching the rain. We couldn’t shoot. If you want the rain to come, just send a film crew there.

Now Max’s signature desert landscape was covered in pretty flowers. Uncool. Even less cool was when the rain didn’t stop, pulverizing the antipodeans with devastating floods. At least Tom Hardy didn’t punch his babymama in the face or anything.

Apparently the project was much farther along than I had realized. According to Miller, “We’ve built the vehicles. We’ve designed the movie. The principal cast is locked in. The film is funded. It’s all ready to go. We just wait.” Adding, “All the contracts are signed. It’s a locked-in film. It has been for 18 months now. We will restart pre-production later this year and begin early next year — weather permitting.

Of those people presumably “locked in” to the project along with Hardy (who needs to attend to his Bane duties this year as well) are Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, and Teresa Palmer, who have all previously been attached to the films.