After a 30-year absence, the Mad Max film series returned with a bang in 2015 with Mad Max: Fury Road, and while Tom Hardy may have succeeded Mel Gibson as the eponymous protagonist, the breakout character was unquestionably Charlize Theron’s Furiosa. Now, instead of delivering a direct follow-up to Fury Road next, director George Miller is gearing up to make a prequel film chronicling Furiosa’s origins, with The Queen’s Gambit and Last Night in Soho actress Anya Taylor-Joy playing the heroine in her younger years. However, it’s been announced that we’ll have to wait longer than expected for the spinoff.
Furiosa was previously set to June 23, 2023, but today Warner Bros moved it to May 24, 2024. So not only has the spinoff been delayed by nearly a full year, but by the time it finally comes out, nearly a decade will have passed since Mad Max: Fury Road. Furiosa is one of the few films currently slated for a 2024 release, alongside Avatar 3 and The Cat in the Hat.
While no specific reason was given for why Furiosa was delayed, the spinoff is expected to begin shooting in South Wales next year. According to Deadline, it will deliver $350 million (in Australian dollars) to the local economy and create around 850 jobs. Keeping in mind what a huge production Mad Max: Fury Road was, it’s possible George Miller and his team need more time to make Furiosa the best it can be, so Warner Bros decided to play it safe and push the spinoff to Memorial Day weekend of 2024, rather than risk rushing it to be ready for summer 2023.
While no specific plot details for the Furiosa spinoff have been revealed yet, we did learn in Mad Max: Fury Road that she once hailed from the Vuvalini clan, but she was taken from them as a child. There’s a good chance we could see this kidnapping early on in the prequel, and from there, we’ll meet Anya Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa and see how she rose through the ranks of Immortan Joe’s forces. And of course, let’s not forget that Charlize Theron’s Furiosa had a mechanical arm. so it’d be logical to assume the spinoff will show how the character lost her original arm years earlier.
Anya Taylor-Joy will be joined in the Furiosa spinoff by Chris Hemsworth and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, though it hasn’t been revealed yet who either of them are playing. George Miller recently revealed that it was Taylor-Joy’s performance in Last Night in Soho that convinced him she should audition for the role, and naturally she aced it. While Miller had considered bringing Charlize Theron back to play Furiosa, he decided that the digital technology that would be used to de-age her, as seen in movies like The Irishman, wasn’t up to his standards.
Keep your eyes locked on CinemaBlend for more news concerning Furiosa’s development, and be sure to look through our 2021 release schedule and 2022 release schedule to learn what movies are slotted for the near future.
