Two years ago, George Miller resuscitated one of cinema’s time-honored franchises in the form of Mad Max: Fury Road, a chaotic, beautifully choreographed action masterclass that introduced the world to Imperator Furiosa, a lone wolf operating under Immortan Joe who turned against the tyrannical ruler in order to free The Five Wives from enslavement.
That is, in a nutshell, the arc of Fury Road, but the film’s exhilarating action and pedal-to-the-medal momentum ensured Miller’s fourth entry into the Mad Max series became a modern-day classic. Charlize Theron, star of Fate of the Furious and the soon-to-be-released Cold War thriller Atomic Blonde, was the actress tasked with bringing Imperator Furiosa to life, and it’s fair to say that Theron’s one-armed, oil-smeared badass stole the show from just about everyone.
But will the actress ever return to George Miller’s Wasteland to headline a new instalment in the Mad Max franchise? It’s not off the table, according to Theron, who told Variety that she’d “love” to star in a prequel movie centering on her Imperator Furiosa.
I’d love to. There were three scripts. They were written as back stories to Max’s character and to Furiosa’s character. But at the end of the day, this thing lives and breathes with [director] George [Miller]. I think Warner Bros. knows that. We are all waiting for him to show us the way.
Mad Max: Fury Road endured a tortured development saga – a saga that reportedly began to weigh on its leading duo, Charlize Theron and Dunkirk‘s Tom Hardy – and it’s a testimony to George Miller’s direction that the final product didn’t release as a flawed, incoherent mess.
But this prolonged stint in production also meant that the Aussie filmmaker considered multiple looks for Imperator Furiosa, with Theron telling Variety that Fury Road could have been a “completely different film.”
Originally, [George] liked this idea that even though they were in the desert, something happened and people actually turned albino. They became these white ghosts. I had this white hair, kind of like Abbey Lee [Kershaw’s] character. It was very much like that: blonde, bleached, very pale skin, no eyebrows. We played around with African war paint. It would have been a completely different film.
Last we reported, George Miller had seemingly drawn up plans for another two movies set in the Mad Max universe, though whether those plans include a Furiosa spinoff remains to be seen. If nothing else, Charlize Theron is still holding out hope, so why shouldn’t we?
