Assuming the world hasn't already been rendered a post-apocalyptic, scorched wasteland by May 2024 (fingers crossed!) we'll finally get a chance to see Furiosa, the nearly-decade-in-the-making prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road, unequivocally one of the greatest action movies of all time. It's set to explore the origins of the heroic one-armed warrior from Fury Road, Furiosa (Charlise Theron), whose rescuing of Immortan Joe's (Hugh Keays-Byrne) beleaguered war brides set into motion that movie's breakneck vehicular mayhem.
Max heads will know that it has been in development for almost as long as Fury Road has been out. Longer even, the script was written before work concluded on the Tom Hardy-starring actioner.
Being a prequel centred on a younger Furiosa — we'll likely see what the mythical “Green Place of Many Mothers” looked like before it was destroyed, for example; lore, give us the lore! — the familiar faces of Fury Road have been swapped out for similarly starry principles.
The Queen's Gambit's Anya Taylor-Joy comes in for Theron as Furiosa, director George Miller being less than convinced by the credibility of de-ageing tech (it worked for Scorsese, but hey-ho). And Chris Hemsworth presumably prepped his best dad bod to portray wobbly warlord Immortan Joe, replacing Brit-Aussie legend Keays-Byrne, who passed away in 2020.
Here's everything else we know about Furiosa.
The first trailer for Furiosa is sending us to Valhalla, shiny and chrome
Furiosa's first trailer is one of those holy-shit-let's-goooooo teasers that immediately elicits two words outta fist-waving reflex: “HELL YEAH.”
Which is a corker of a feat in itself given some of us have waited over eight years for a first look. Coming in at over two minutes, this looks like Fury Road redux. And can that ever be a bad thing? Sometimes you just have to recognise that if the car ain't broke, you don't fix it. So of course we want more big steampunk cars smashing into each other; of course we want trucks kitted out with menacing hook guns like they're whaling in the desert; of course(!!!) we want more war boys.
Goddamn it, Chris Hemsworth has a motorised chariot. A chariot!
We also learn a little more about Furiosa's story, coming by way of stylish title cards. “45 years after the collapse, a young Furiosa is taken from her family,” they read. “She will devote the rest of her life to finding her way home.” And then, full body chills: “This is her odyssey.”
Did we say it already? Yell it this time. “HELL YEAH!!!”
Charlise Theron was “heartbroken” about not being recast — but she gets why
After a New York Times interview with Miller confirmed that Charlise Theron wouldn't return as Furiosa in the Fury Road follow-up, the actor told of her “heartbreak” about the recasting in conversation with the Hollywood Reporter.
“It's a tough one to swallow,” she said. “Yeah, it's a little heartbreaking, for sure. I really love that character, and I'm so grateful that I had a small part in creating her. She will forever be someone I think of and reflect on fondly.” We wonder if Theron still has Furiosa's mechanical arm prosthetic in the loft somewhere. Maybe it has pride of place on the mantelpiece?
Miller had looked at reuniting with Theron for Furiosa aided by de-ageing tech — which shaved the decades off Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, though with varied results — but felt the technology couldn't support an entire movie-spanning effort.
“For the longest time, I thought we could just use CG de-ageing on Charlize, but I don't think we're nearly there yet,” Miller told the New York Times. “Despite valiant attempts on The Irishman, I think there's still an uncanny valley. Everyone is on the verge of solving it, particularly Japanese video game designers, but there's still a pretty wide valley, I believe.”
In a later interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Theron confirmed that there was no bad blood between her and Miller, or indeed Taylor-Joy. “One of the greatest fucking actresses is picking up something that I only imagined,” she said.
What will Furiosa be about?
It's the first Mad Max movie not to primarily feature Max Rockatansky himself, portrayed by Mel Gibson in the original trilogy and Tom Hardy in Fury Road, instead providing backstory for the titular Furiosa.
The official synopsis reads:
More importantly, what are the chance of a flamethrower-guitar-wielding war boy turning up in this one? They're definitely not zero.
When will Furiosa come out?
Furiosa has been officially dated for 24 May 2024 worldwide. Further, rumours abound that it'll head to the Croisette on the southern coast of France earlier that month for a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where Fury Road bowed eight years ago.