After the world thought we might be cursed with Happy Feet 3, director George Miller surprised everyone with a loose continuation of his Mad Max trilogy titled Mad Max: Fury Road (the film currently sweeping our Movie Madness tournament).
Fury Road became one of the best action films of the 2010s (if not ever), and since it was released Miller has talked about multiple sequels. One of them is a spinoff film focusing on Furiosa, who was played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road.
Apparently, Miller is preparing to start shooting the Furiosa spinoff next year, and new plot details have revealed that the plan is to focus on a younger Furiosa. Miller and the studio have been remotely meeting with actresses who could play the character.
Previously, Jodie Comer’s name was in the running, but Variety is now saying that Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Split) is at the top of the list. Additionally, Richard Madden is also being courted for a role as “a breathtakingly handsome man with an angel’s face that is scarred by a deep forehead wound stitched together with shiny chrome staples.” Miller also has Yayha Abdul-Mateen II on his wishlist.
Miller has hinted in previous interviews that Furiosa has a compelling backstory:
“Yeah, she’s a pretty compelling character so it would be great to tell her story. Her backstory is really interesting. We only allude to it in this movie because this movie is on the run; people don’t have much time for recreational talk. But you pick up, you have a sense of her having gone through stuff. That’s what the film is trying to do. You’re trying to put a lot of iceberg under the tip, I like saying. One of the things that’s really gratifying, people are reading the film more than just the surface — the events of the movie, and just picking up a lot of stuff underneath it, which is very deliberate……So in many ways, the audience is picking up a lot about Furiosa — or enough to intrigue. And she’s got an interesting story.”
Miller is expected to start production on the film as soon as he’s done filming Three Thousand Years of Longing. If he gets all the actors he wants, the Mad Max spinoff will already be off to a good start with that talent.
Would you rather have a Furiosa spinoff or a Mad Max 5? What do you think of Taylor-Joy playing a young Furiosa?