Furiosa returns: Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth cast in Mad Max prequel
Anya Taylor-Joy has been cast in the title role of Furiosa, the long-awaited prequel of George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which will tell the backstory of the renegade character originated in the 2015 blockbuster by Charlize Theron.
In details revealed to Deadline, Furiosa is in advanced development with Warner Bros and will also star Chris Hemsworth and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, with Miller directing, cowriting (with Nico Lathouris) and producing under the banner of his Australian-based company Kennedy Miller Mitchell. Doug Mitchell will return to co-produce.
Furiosa’s was one of many character backstories developed during the 15year making of Fury Road, Miller revealed to the New York Times in May. In fact, a second screenplay about her life had already been written before Fury Road began shooting. “It was purely a way of helping Charlize and explaining it to ourselves,” he said.
“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 continued. “Despite the valiant attempts on The Irishman, I think there’s still an uncanny valley. Everyone is on the verge of solving it, particular Japanese video-game designers, but there’s still a pretty wide valley, I believe.”
Taylor-Joy, an American- born Argentinian-British actor who is currently starring as a chess genius in The Queen’s Gambit, most recently played Emma Woodhouse in the 2020 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. She also had a lead role in the 2016 horror film Split and its 2019 sequel Glass.
Hemsworth – who will begin filming the next movie in the Thor franchise in Australia in March – will star alongside her in Furiosa, as will Abdul Mateen II, who starred as Black Manta in Aquaman and is currently filming the fourth Matrix film.
Miller first alluded to the prospect of an Imperator Furiosa film in January 2016, telling Entertainment Weekly: “She’s a pretty compelling character, so it’d be great to tell her story … Her backstory is pretty interesting; we only allude to it in this movie.” But Mad Max sequels have been held up, after Miller’s production company sued Warner Bros for unpaid earnings from Fury Road.
Although it was controversial among the men’s rights activist groups
who derided the decision to have a female-led Mad Max film, Fury Road won six Oscars, netted US$375.2m at the global box office, and was praised by feminist critics for its dystopian depiction of the effects of male patriarchy.
“It’s not feminist because Theron’s character gets to engage in as much violence as any other action lead, but because the world director and writer George Miller has created shows the horror of sexism and the necessity of freedom from patriarchy,” wrote the Guardian’s Jessica Valenti. “That is what’s truly terrifying to some men – not that Theron has more lines than actor Tom Hardy.”