With the end of the year approaching, awards season is heating up, and Mad Max: Fury Road is starting to gain some traction in the Oscar race. While we'll have to wait until next month to see if director George Miller's action masterpiece lands any Oscar nominations, Mad Max: Fury Road was already named the best movie of the year by the National Board of Review, and it also recently landed a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture - Drama. In a new interview with Screen Daily, director George Miller and producer Doug Mitchell confirm that there may be a black and white version of the movie hitting theaters next year. Here's an excerpt from Screen Daily's article.

"In 2016, there might also be a black-and-white version of the film, which Miller confirms was his original intent. A greyscale and silent version was leaked online in September, although it has since been removed. Mitchell says that an official version exists and could yet receive a theatrical release."

Back in May, George Miller promised that the black and white version of Mad Max: Fury Road would be included on the Blu-ray release, but this version didn't make the official release. The director revealed in his May interview that the black and white version is the best possible way to watch the film, but we'll have to wait and see if this B&W release comes to fruition. Here's what he had to say about why the black and white print is the best version, in his May interview.

"We spent a lot of time in DI (digital intermediate), and we had a very fine colorist, Eric Whipp. One thing I've noticed is that the default position for everyone is to de-saturate post-apocalyptic movies. There's only two ways to go, make them black and white - the best version of this movie is black and white, but people reserve that for art movies now. The other version is to really go all-out on the color. The usual teal and orange thing? That's all the colors we had to work with. The desert's orange and the sky is teal, and we either could de-saturate it, or crank it up, to differentiate the movie. Plus, it can get really tiring watching this dull, de-saturated color, unless you go all the way out and make it black and white."

Since Mad Max: Fury Road is getting Oscar buzz, it's possible that Warner Bros. may consider this black-and-white cut for a theatrical re-release to bolster its awards season chances, but no official release date has been confirmed. The studio re-released the movie back in September, to give it a proper IMAX 3D release, but we'll have to wait and see if this black and white version comes to theaters. Would you pay good money to see Mad Max: Fury Road in black and white on the big screen?