George Miller

At 79 years old, George Miller has this physical status:

George Miller AO (born 3 March 1945) is an Australian filmmaker and former physician.

He is best known for his Mad Max film, his second installment The Road Warrior and the fourth, Fury Road, has been lauded as one of the best action films of all time.

Miller has been involved in a variety of projects, other than the Mad Max films.

These include the Academy Award-winning Babe and Happy Feet film collection. Miller, formerly known as Kennedy Miller and Dr. Pape, is a co-founder of the production houses Kennedy Miller Mitchell and Dr. Gregor.

D Studio.

Bill Miller and Doug Mitchell's younger brother were in charge of virtually all of Miller's later films, following his death of his original producing partner, Byron Kennedy. Miller was nominated for the Best Animated Feature for Happy Feet (2006) by the Academy Award in 2006.

He has been nominated for five other Academy Awards, including Best Original Screenplay for Babe, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture and Best Director for Fury Road in 1995.

Early life

Miller was born in Chinchilla, Queensland, on March 3rd, to Greek immigrant parents Jim Miller and mother Angela. Jim (aka Dimitrios) was born on the Greek island of Kythira, Jim's father anglicised his surname from Miliotis to Miller when he emigrated to Australia; Angela's family were Greek refugees from Anatolia, who were displaced by the 1923 population exchange. George and John, Chris, and Bill married and settled in Chinchilla, raising four children.

George attended Ipswich Grammar School and later Sydney Boys High School, before attending Medical School at the University of New South Wales with his twin brother John. George and his younger brother Chris made St. Vincent's Revue Film, a one-minute short film that earned them the first prize in a student competition during their last year at medical school (1971). George attended a film workshop at Melbourne University in 1971, where he worked with fellow student, Byron Kennedy, who developed a long friendship and production partnership with him until Kennedy's death. Miller completed his residency at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, spending his time off crewing on short experimental films. Miller and Kennedy formed Kennedy Miller Productions in the same year. The two artists later collaborated on a number of projects. Miller retained his name when Kennedy died in 1983. In 2009, Kennedy Miller Mitchell was renamed as a way to honor producer Doug Mitchell's contribution to the company.

Personal life

Miller was married to actress Sandy Gore from 1985-1992; the couple also have a daughter. Margaret Sixell, a film editor, has been married to him since 1995; the two sons have two brothers. Both the two met in the early stages of Flirting's making, and Sixel has since served on all of Miller's directorial ventures in some capacity.

Miller is the patron of the Australian Film Institute and the BIFF (Brisbane International Film Festival) and a co-patron of the Sydney Film Festival.

Miller has stated on several occasions that the 1940 version of Pinocchio is one of his favorite films.

Miller, a feminist, told Vanity Fair in May 2015, "I've gone from being male dominant to being surrounded by dazzling women." I can't help but being a feminist."

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Career

The short film Violence in Cinema: Part 1 (1971), Miller's first film, polarized critics, viewers, and retailers so much that it was included in the documentary section of the 1972 Sydney Film Festival due to the fact-of-true depiction of cinematic violence. Miller made his feature-length directorial debut with Mad Max in 1979. The film, based on a script written by Miller and James McCausland in 1975, was funded by Kennedy Miller Productions and continued to be a worldwide success. As a result, Mad Max 2 released two more sequels starring Mel Gibson and a third starring Charlize Theron (1985) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

Miller produced a remake of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" as a part of the anthology film Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). In addition, he co-produced and co-directed many famous Australian television seriess, including The Dismissal (1983) and The Cowra Breakout (1984).

In 1987, Miller directed The Witches of Eastwick, starring Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, Cher, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Miller's first film was a troubling one. "I quit the film twice, but Jack [Nicholson] kept me in there," Miller said. "Just sit down, lose your emotions, and take a look at the work," the boss said. Stick with the film if you like the production.' He was a great guy. I learned more from him than I did from anyone else – it was amazing. Miller was also coached by Nicholson to exaggerate his demands during the production, insisting that his designers would give him 300 extras when he only wanted 150. Polly Platt, an award-winning production designer, has also worked closely with Miller on The Witches of Eastwick. Cher later said that before working on the film, Miller called her at home, the day after her 40th birthday, to inform her that he and Nicholson did not want her to be in the film. She was described as "too old and not sexy."

Miller, primarily focused on Australian projects after The Witches of Eastwick. Nicole Kidman, the producer of Flirting, Dead Calm, and the TV miniseries Bangkok Hilton and Vietnam, all starring Nicole Kidman, was instrumental in her career's success.

With the publication of Lorenzo's Oil (1992), which he co-wrote with Nick Enright, Miller returned to directing.

Miller was hired to direct Contact in 1993, based on Carl Sagan's account and Ann Druyan's tale. Warner Bros. and Miller mutually agreed to part ways, and Robert Zemeckis was eventually brought on to direct after being on the film for more than a year.

Miller co-wrote Babe (1995), wrote and directed its sequel Babe: Pig in the City (1998).

Miller was also the maker of Happy Feet, a musical epic about penguins in Antarctica. In November 2006, Warner Bros.'s production was released. In addition to being a goofbox office success, Happy Feet earned Miller his fourth Academy Award nomination and first place in the category of Best Animated Feature.

Miller produced Justice League: Mortal, a Justice League film directed by in 2007. Although production was initially delayed due to the Writer Guild of America's strike in 2007, the Knights' triumph led to Warner Bros.'s decision to cancel and pursue different options.

Happy Feet Two, a Happy Feet Two sequel, was announced in 2011. After many years of post-production delays, Miller began principal photography on Mad Max: Fury Road, the fourth film in the Mad Max series. Fury Road was released on May 15, 2015. The film received ten Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, while Miller himself was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.

Miller would direct Three Thousand Years of Longing, which would begin filming in November 2020. In May 2022, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

Miller and co-writer Nico Lathouris completed two additional Mad Max scripts in April 2017. Tom Hardy, the Fury Road lead, has committed to the next sequel. Miller said, "the fifth film in the series will be titled Mad Max: The Wasteland," in 2015 and again in early 2017. Miller was announced in 2020 that he would then direct the Mad Max spinoff Furiosa.

Dr D Studio, a Sydney-based digital animation studio, was established in mid-2007 as a result of a collaboration between Kennedy Miller Mitchell and Omnilab Media. The studio closed in 2013 following the failure of Happy Feet Two (2011) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

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