George Miller is developing a Mad Max: Fury Road prequel, says the AVClub. Titled Mad Max: Furiosa, it will focus on a character first introduced in Fury Road. However, the article continues, prequel won’t have Charlize Theron reprising her performance from the earlier film. Instead, she will be portrayed by a younger actress.
Miller explained his decision in a recent interview. The movie takes place while Furiosa is still in her early twenties. While digitally de-aging Theron was an option, Miller felt that the technology still isn’t quite there, causing the uncanny valley effect. Ordinarily, this is the kind of news we’d greet with skepticism. After all, Theron’s Furiosa was as big of a badass in the film as Tom Hardy’s Mad Max. However, we also felt similarly cautious when it was first announced Mel Gibson won’t play Max Rockatansky in Fury Road. But when the film did come out, all of our concerns were run over by a war rig within its first twenty minutes.
Miller penned the script for Furiosa even before he began working on Fury Road. It was a way to explain the character both to himself and to Theron. Miller is currently dealing with coronavirus shutdown as well as with the production of his new film Three Thousand Years of Longing starring Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton. Even so, Furiosa’s rig seems to be looming on the desert horizon once again.
