Mad Max: Fury Road: Mel Gibson will not return to the franchise as it would be like 'seeing Sean Connery appear in a Daniel Craig Bond film'

Rumours of the actor cameoing as Max 30 year on appear unfounded

( EVERETT COLLECTION/REX)

Original Mad Max Mel Gibson will not be starring in the franchises next instalment, Fury Road, having last played the eponymous character 30 years ago.

Director George Miller said at the Los Angeles press conference that it would have been like “seeing Sean Connery appear in a Daniel Craig Bond film."

Gibson’s break out role was as the Road Warrior in the original 1981 Mad Max film, going on the play Max in a further two sequels.

Miller said the rumour Gibson would cameo in Fury Road were unfounded, saying it “didn't make sense to suddenly have Mel appear, it would just pull the audience out. I don't think he would've done it anyway."

Tom Hardy stars in dystopian action thriller Mad Max: Fury Road (Warner Bros)

The director also said how Tom Hardy, who will play Max in Fury Road, was the right choice to take over as he “felt so much like the character.

“It was time for there to be a new Mad Max, just like there have been several James Bonds over the period.”

He added how he was initially very against a fourth Mad Max film but eventually came around.

"I'd already made three Mad Max movies,” Miller continued, “so I didn't really want to do another one, I had other things I wanted to do, but the idea came, I kept on pushing it away, it came back and grew and grew and I found myself saying, 'I think we'll be making another Mad Max movie.’

"I just didn't realise it would take more than 12 years to be here today with the finished movie!"

Mad Max: Fury Road, which stars Tom Hardy, Charlize Hoult and Zoe Kravitz, will hit the big screen on 15 May.