I was hoping for more than yet another prequel, but it sounds like this is what Miller has going -- a gender-swapped MAD MAX project minus Mad Max. Very likely an "origin movie" if Taylor-Joy is auditioning I'd imagine.
Variety reports that the director has already held an audition with Anya Taylor-Joy, who was central to the movies The VVitch, Split, and Emma, and will also appear in the (hopefully) upcoming New Mutants. Other actors have also been auditioned over Skype, but their names have not been made public.
Whether Charlize Theron, who portrayed the instantly iconic Imperator Furiosa in Fury Road, will return for the movie remains unknown as rumours suggest Furiosa may be a prequel. Joy may therefore step into Theron’s shoes – and we could see the beginnings of Furiosa’s tangles with Immortan Joe.
Probably it's what Miller wants to make. I got the sense watching Fury Road he was more interested in that character than Mad Max. I mean Max is basically a side character in his own movie!
I think Miller just wanted to make a movie set in the "universe" of the Mad Max films, but WB insisted that Max actually be in it, even if it meant not getting Gibson back, and Miller acquiesced just to get the film financed. Maybe it would have been different if Miller had managed to make the film in the early 2000's with Gibson before his first attempt was aborted.
AndyDursin wrote: ↑Sat Mar 28, 2020 11:08 am
I'm also always going to lament that he never got the movie made with Mel back in the early 2000's.
All apologies to Tom Hardy, who's a fine actor and did well within the limited character he was given to play in Fury Road, but, of all the aging 80's action stars, the one who I would have most wanted to see reprise one of his most iconic franchise characters was Gibson with Max. Even in real life, he looks like he's been wandering through a post-apocalyptic desert for the last forty years, and it would have been so gratifying to see him play Max again.
Would've been a lot more effective, because the character is sketched so thin in the movie, just having Mel there would've brought audiences an immediate attachment to the character that's missing from the film in a narrative sense.
I like Hardy and it's not his fault, but it doesn't even seem like the same character. It's more like how Django was always used in countless westerns as a name but was seldom an actual running character -- just the same name. That guy is Max, but he doesn't really come off like Mel's Mad Max (nor does it really make any attempt to explain it).
Next ‘Mad Max’ Movie Will Be Imperator Furiosa Prequel Without Charlize Theron
George Miller is planning to expand the “Mad Max” universe with a prequel movie based on Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa from 2015’s “Fury Road.”
In an interview with The New York Times, the director said the film is an origin story and he’s searching for an actress in her 20s to take over the role. He said he had considered using de-aging technology in order to allow Theron — who’s 44 –to play the part again, but has decided against doing so.
“For the longest time, I thought we could just use CG de-aging on Charlize, but I don’t think we’re nearly there yet,” Miller said. “Despite the valiant attempts on ‘The Irishman,’ I think there’s still an uncanny valley.”
In prepping the “Fury Road” script, Miller and co-writer Nick Lathouris developed back stories for every character, but not much was revealed about Furiosa’s past. In the film, she is a war captain under leader Immortan Joe, but turns against him in order to free Joe’s concubines. She then forms an alliance with Max Rockatansky, portrayed by Tom Hardy.
Miller has directed all four “Mad Max” movies and was nominated for best picture and best director for “Fury Road” in 2015. He plans to shoot the Furiosa movie after he completes shooting “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” starring Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton. That project was unveiled at the 2018 American Film Market.
MGM has signed a deal for domestic rights to “Three Thousand Years.” Plot details are under wraps. The film will be released in the U.S. via MGM’s joint distribution and marketing entity United Artists Releasing. The MGM news was first reported by Deadline Hollywood.
George Miller directing a sure-fire hit sequel that ended up bombing is not a new phenomenon. Back in 1998 he took the reigns of “Babe: Pig in the City,” a wild follow-up to a smash hit he only produced, and ended up directing a critically well-received yet bizarre, self-indulgent sequel that failed to muster the same audience appeal as its predecessor.
After enormous personal and professional pain spent developing “Mad Max: Fury Road,” the fourth “Max” movie became an instant hit in 2015, despite being so expensive that it didn’t turn a huge profit. Now Miller is back for more – a prequel to “Fury Road” centered around Charlize Theron’s defacto lead, here portrayed by both Alyla Browne and, in its second half, Anya Taylor-Joy. “Furiosa” netted some critical acclaim but died at the international box-office, ultimately certainly going down as a major flop for Warner Bros.
Frankly, it’s not too hard to see why “Furiosa” struggled to find an audience. Despite carrying a reported budget of nearly $170 million, “Furiosa” looks more like a Zack Snyder movie than a picture from George Miller. Relying far more on CGI than “Fury Road,” Miller has conjured up a green screen-laden prequel that often resembles a live-action cartoon – with animation that’s more visibly lacking in 4K UHD than it might have been even in its theatrical presentation (I can’t speak to that, as like many others, I passed on seeing the film in theaters). The shift from gritty wasteland reality to a fantasy landscape that looks more like a video game is jarring, and there’s not nearly enough dramatic engagement here to compensate.
The story, concocted by Miller and Nico Lathouris, might’ve worked with a production that relied more on the physical element: juvenile survivor Furiosa is captured by psycho gang leader Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), spends her time watching his sordid activity in the wasteland, then is shifted off to another psycho gang leader, Immortan Joe, who takes her to become one of his “wives.” Eventually Furiosa breaks out and disguises herself as a mute boy in order to infiltrate Joe’s ranks, seeking revenge on Dementus and a way back to her clan.
Overlong at nearly 2½ hours, “Furiosa” intermittently comes to life when Furiosa first becomes attached to Joe’s world, but the film misses an easy opportunity to have her bond with the other “wives,” surprising since the girls are an integral plot element in “Fury Road.” Tom Burke is briefly effective as a weary member of Joe’s clan who takes Furiosa under his wing, but the film, again, doesn’t develop this angle enough so it generates any emotional stakes.
Instead of his characters, Miller is much more interested here in the grotesque (a still birth of a mutated fetus and violence that’s far grizzlier than any of the previous films) and delivering lengthy pursuit sequences out on the wasteland road. The issue here is, again, a heavy reliance on CGI that basically becomes a distraction.
Time and time again I was taken out of scenes, wondering how much of the foreground shot was real and where the computers took over, often between a racing car and a phony looking horizon. What’s more, some of the VFX work is shockingly poor, and these issues are amplified by the clarity of Warner’s 4K UHD disc, which has Dolby Vision HDR and shows all the deficiencies in some of the animation throughout. Perhaps if Miller had staged these sequences with the care and attention to detail that “Fury Road” illustrated, “Furiosa” would’ve been more effective – as it is, it’s a pale shade of its predecessor, from its story to its diminished visual presentation.
I actually quit half an hour before the end. I thought it started out well -- there is genuine emotional resonance in the early scenes, and Alyla Browne is wonderful in the role. But once she is replaced by Anya Taylor-Joy, the air goes out of the story, and it get progressively more tedious, and dull.
I admire the effort and imagination that went into the action sequences -- but they were all overlong and became redundant. Tom Burke's character was an interesting addition to the story, but he comes along too late, and isn't on screen long enough. The whole sequence where Taylor-Joy and Burke are ambushed and then fail to escape would have worked just fine as the climactic action sequence. But no, they had to give us another one. Sorry, I just couldn't be bothered to sit through any more -- because it was obvious what was going to happen: another chase, more people getting run over, shot, incinerated, etc., Furiosa kills Chris Helmsworth and is rewarded with a high position by Imortan Joe. Then she vows to one day get back home.
AndyDursin wrote: ↑Sat Aug 10, 2024 10:51 am
That's basically the gist of it. Though they go one step further and basically end where FURY ROAD starts.
That was another thing -- the opening moments of this movie are identical to Fury Road; the sound of emergency radio broadcasts and calls for help, the stock footage of the trees swaying in the nuclear bomb test. No joke -- for a second I thought I had started watching Fury Road by mistake!
Oh, and the horrible score -- all noisy wails and rumbles. But that's film "music" these days!
Even in real life, he looks like he's been wandering through a post-apocalyptic desert for the last forty years, and it would have been so gratifying to see him play Max again.
