
This advertising flyer is for the 1983 cinema re-release of Mad Max in Australia.
To emphasise the point the film's title is accompanied by a dominating number 1 and the addition of prominent text, 'The Original' and 'In the beginning'.
In contrast to posters from the first release in 1979, the re-release also highlights the plot points that led to Max becoming 'mad' – 'Max had a wife, a child and a job' – which gives the character's narrative arc more depth.
After it found international success, Mad Max for a time held the Guinness World Record for the highest box-office-to-budget ratio of any motion picture.
On its first release in the US in 1980, the film was dubbed for American audiences unused to Australian accents! Mad Max 2 was retitled The Road Warrior for its American release in 1982 so as not to alienate audiences that had not seen the first film.
After The Road Warrior became a sizeable international hit, Mad Max was re-released in US and UK cinemas in 1983 before finding an even bigger audience on home video in the 1980s.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.