IT'S BEEN A long eight years and counting, but it's finally almost time to return to the Fury Road.
I should rephrase that; it hasn't been a long eight years since the May 2015 release of Mad Max: Fury Road, because every time anyone gets a craving for the absolutely beautiful, explosive chaos of director George Miller's blockbuster masterpiece (which was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning six of them), the film has been right there for those of us obsessed enough to experience again, and again, and again. It's endlessly detailed, tremendously rewatchable, and to put it simply, never gets old. If there was never going to be another Mad Max movie, things would've been OK.
But knowing we'll get a chance to revisit the aesthetically stunning and fireball-filled, post-apocalyptic world that Miller created with Fury Road? Well, we sure won't say no—and that's exactly what Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga will be doing in May 2024, just over 9 years after Fury Road took big screens around the world by storm (quite literally) for the first time.
Furiosa finds Miller once again directing and co-writing (alongside Fury Road scribe Nico Lathouris) in a film that turns the clock back to Imperator Furiosa's (Charlize Theron's badass, robot-armed heroine in Fury Road) younger days. She'll be played this time around by Anya Taylor-Joy, one of the industry's most electrifying and ascending stars of the last 5-10 years, and a performer worthy of taking on the impressive action star mantle that Theron has vacated.
But the real star of Furiosa, of course, is going to be the experience of returning to this wasteland of a world—where base resources like water, bullets, and gas are the only valuable currency—and seeing the incredible visuals, set pieces, and action that will come to life within it.
We don't need to fully re-litigate Fury Road right now (and if you somehow haven't seen it, that needs to change immediately), but just keep in mind how Miller and company were able to make characters like The Doof Warrior—a human-ish creature who plays a guitar that blasts fire from its neck—up from scratch. We've already seen that they've cooked up something being called the "Drillmobile"—DRILLMOBILE!—in the trailer alone.
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It's going to be unbelievable. How can anyone wait? 2024 is shaping up to be an absolutely epic year for major scale films, with Dune: Part Two finally dropping, along with Bong Joon-Ho's Mickey17, Deadpool 3, a new Alien movie, Godzilla x Kong, and more. But Furiosa feels like a good bet to end up on the very top of the list.
Who's in the Furiosa cast?
The Furiosa cast is headlined with the titular character played by Anya Taylor-Joy, who audiences probably know best by now from The Queen's Gambit and The Menu, but she's also shined in movies like The VVItch, The Northman, and Last Night in Soho. She also provided the voice of Princess Peach in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, one of 2023's highest-grossing selections.
She'll face off against Dementus, a villainous warlord character played by Chris Hemsworth with a big beard, a fake nose, and a wild voice. Hemsworth is, of course, best known for playing Thor in several films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but he's also shown strong interest through the years in playing increasingly bizarre, unhinged, characters and villains. To see a bit of what he can do in this space, we'd recommend checking out Bad Times at the El Royale and Spiderhead.
British actor Tom Burke, who played Orson Welles in David Fincher's 2020 film Mank, is also a major part of the cast.
How does Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga connect to Mad Max: Fury Road?
To put it simply, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road. The film's primary goal is to explore how Furiosa became the character we met in the 2015 film, as played by Charlize Theron.
There are other connections to Fury Road as well; at this juncture in her life, Furiosa lives in "The Green Place," a rare location in this decimated world where things are both peaceful and regal. But this film's plot will find her snatched from there, thrown into a wasteland war between factions that include an unhinged warlord named Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and a young Immortan Joe (the villain of Fury Road).
Other characters from Fury Road, including Joe's brute son Rictus Erectus, the weird doctor-esque Organic Mechanic, and tons 0f War Boys, are all set to appear once again as well.
When does Furiosa come out?
The movie is going to hit theaters—distributed by Warner Bros.—on May 24, 2024. That's not very far away.
Will Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga be the best movie ever made?
It's hard to answer this one definitively, in part because it would be so hard to dethrone Mad Max: Fury Road from its eight-year reign as best movie ever made. But with George Miller and a pair of extremely game leads in tow, Furiosa is certainly going to make its play.
