George Miller retraces the decades-long journey to bring Mad Max back.

Can a film be 30 years in the making?

For a man like George Miller, the answer is yes.

They live like imaginary friends, no question, in the back of your brain.

They cant help it.

I mean all Ive done all my life is come up with stories.

Im hardwired for that now, dont have any choice really.

But the idea for this popped into my head.

I thought, Oh.

Thatd make a really goodMad Maxmovie.

I definitely didnt want to do another one.

Like a lot of these things, I kept pushing it away and it kept on insisting.

I kept on thinking about it and the scenes kept coming pretty easy.

Its like looking at a story through the mist and then it becomes clearer and clearer.

We couldnt regroup, recalls Miller.

I had to move ontoHappy Feet(his Oscar-winning 2006 animated film) because that was scheduled.

That took 3 12 years.

By the time he was done withHappy Feetand ready to return to Max, Gibson had moved on.

Every time Heath Ledger came to Sydney, hed call in and wed talk about it.

He had that same quality that Mel had all that time ago.

Then we had the awful tragedy of him being gone.

I wasnt daunted because of the James Bond movies, affirms Miller.

If you ask someone, Who is James Bond to you, us older guys will say Sean Connery.

And then more middle-aged people will say Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan.

And the younger people say Daniel Craig.

So its the same thing, really; its the mini version of that.

I could not putBronsontogether with thisRain Mantype guy.

I thought, Wow.

(Tom) is very physical, Miller says.

Really fast and a quick study in the fight scenes.

But Miller also found a co-lead in Theron who was able to match Hardy move for move.

There are no flying humans.

So its not a green screen, CG movie.

Its analog compared to digital.

It will look fake.

Why not do it for real when you could and youve got the people who can execute it?

We had a really fantastic stunt crew, and a rigging crew, and special effects team.

Why not do it for real?

And it was real.

Not only that, Tom Hardy got up on top of it.

Otherwise, its very hard for me to make a movie.

I just have to push the envelope a little bit, and I dont know why.

I often say to myself, Why do I try things with a high degree of difficulty?

Mad Max: Fury Roadis out in theaters Friday (May 15).