'Hurt Locker' Star Gunning for 'Mad Max 4'

I'm very happy for Jeremy Renner's current success in The Hurt Locker. We talked to him almost two months ago before the film was officially released in the U.S. Now, the word is out: It's one of the best reviewed movies of the year, the first one to officially garner a bunch of Oscar talk, and our own pick for the best movie of the year so far. Renner seems like an early Best Actor nominee, too. So where does he go from here? He sat down with his hometown paper, The Modesto Bee (via Ain't it Cool News) and said he's working on Ben Affleck's The Town in August, and that he's also pursuing a pretty big film that would certainly benefit from a little pre-season Oscar buzz. Can you see Renner in a Mad Max movie? The actor doesn't say he's vying for the lead role, a kind of reboot of Mel Gibson's iconic post-apocalypse survivor, but he does say he's "fighting to do the new Mad Max film with [director] George Miller. That might be next summer. I'm screen-testing and meeting George Miller." After The Hurt Locker, I can definitely see it. I don't guess Max has to be Australian, though I kind of assumed he would be. Personally, I had kind of assumed that role was just sitting there for Eric Bana if he wanted it. But again, we shouldn't necessarily presume Renner would be playing Mad Max if he was cast. I haven't quite decided if we need another movie in this series, because we didn't really need Thunderdome. If it's as raw as the original and The Road Warrior, then great. But please don't make a polished, professional looking Mad Max. That would just be a waste of our time.