Some of the most memorable sequences in an action film that won six Oscars had swinging “pole cats” attacking the runaway War Rig.

Norris and his team of 20 Australians and New Zealanders have since shot the likes of Suicide Squad in Canada, Ghost In The Shell in New Zealand, Triple Frontier in Hawaii and Panama, The Suicide Squad in Atlanta, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga in Australia, Mercy in Los Angeles and now Ramayana in India.

“What we were able to achieve with George on Fury Road really shone the spotlight [on us],” he said. “We’ve been able to travel the world doing films and exporting great Australian talent.”

While the Taurus awards already recognise best fight, best high work, hardest hit and other individual stunts, Norris hoped the new Oscar would recognise how action design was as crucial to storytelling as costume and production design.

“It’s a collaborative process of getting the director’s vision on screen,” he said. “Most ‘blockbusters’ are spectacle films and action is clearly a driving force in that genre.”

While stunts have been an important part of cinema since silent film stars Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, such stunt performers as David Leitch (Bullet Train, The Fall Guy), Chad Stahelski (John Wick), Sam Hargrave (Extraction) and Australia’s Nash Edgerton (Gringo, Mr Inbetween) have brought their action talents to directing in recent years.

It has not hurt the stunt community’s visibility that Brad Pitt played a stunt double in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and Ryan Gosling was a stuntman in The Fall Guy.

Miller said the Oscars recognition was long overdue.

“Stunts now have all the complexity and all the creativity that any other field has,” he said. “Stunt actors have special skills and quite often they play characters. There’s a lot of technical complexity and a lot of engineering in what they do.”

Miller said the action scenes in the Mad Max films were an integral part of the story, with the late Grant Page and Norris key contributors to their impact.

Edgerton called the Academy’s decision “wonderful news”.

“Growing up in Australia and getting into films and stunts, the Mad Max films were a huge influence and were a big part of pushing action cinema forward,” he said. “My favourite kind of action has always been very story-driven – action sequences that move the story forward and aren’t just about the spectacle.

“Films like Mad Max, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Die Hard etc where the characters feel like they are in real peril.”

GUY NORRIS’ THREE FAVOURITE STUNT SCENES

POLE CAT CHASE IN MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015)

Norris said the sequences that had so-called pole cats attacking the War Rig, driven by Furiosa (Charlize Theron), were designed to be like “a moving stage play” that was then shot in the Namibian desert.

“It was all live in real time as a continued piece of action,” he said. “We worked on it for several months and, in that one sequence alone, there were probably 50 stunt performers. Their timing had to be totally correct.”

HARLEY QUINN’S ESCAPE IN THE SUICIDE SQUAD (2021)

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) escapes from a cell and fights her way to freedom. “People at this level of filmmaking always try and use a double,” Norris said. “But I always try to design the action so that the actors can be involved and can drive the story forward really well. As well as being a fabulous actress, [Robbie] is also an athlete so we were able to have her on cables running across walls and leaping and doing great weapons work.”

STOWAWAY CHASE IN FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA (2024)

With Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) driving and Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) hiding underneath, the War Rig is chased through the desert in a scene shot mostly in Hay, NSW. “There’s an enormous amount of moving parts and storytelling,” Norris said. “You have to put your homework into planning it really well and looking at all the possible problems then try to mitigate them.”