George Miller’s Furiosa Spin-Off Is Happening, With Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth

Way back in March—which seems life a lifetime ago, in Pandemic Time—we reported that Mad Max series creator George Miller was trying to move ahead on his long-awaited Fury Road follow up, which he had long said was going to be about the character of Furiosa, so spectacularly played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road, our #1 movie of the 2010s. Rather than follow up after the events of that film, though, the next story was said to be a prequel, and Miller was auditioning actresses that included current It Girl Anya Taylor-Joy.

Now that news has become official—Warner Bros. has pulled the trigger on Furiosa, with Anya Taylor-Joy as the star. And not only that, she’ll be joined by Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth, along with the star of the upcoming Candyman sequel, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. The film will reportedly explore the origins of Furiosa’s character—perhaps we’ll see how she lost that arm?—and will appropriately be directed by Miller, from a script co-written with Nico Lathouris, who also co-wrote Fury Road.

We’d regard those all as good signs, along with the fact that Miller also has more of his Fury Road production team on board already according to Deadline, including production designer Colin Gibson, editor Margaret Sixel, sound mixer Ben Osmo and makeup designer Lesley Vanderwalt—every single one of them ended up with an Academy Award for Fury Road. That’s a damn good reason for film geeks to get excited about Furiosa, if you ask us.

Taylor-Joy has truly been all over the place recently, including a long-delayed appearance in New Mutants that was shot years ago, and the new Netflix limited series The Queen’s Gambit. She recently filmed Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho and is now working with Robert Eggers on The Northman—truly living the dream. Hemsworth, meanwhile, needs no introduction—Marvel’s Thor is an interesting addition to the cast, and it’s not clear what kind of character he’ll be playing yet, but we’d bet on there being a lot of shirtlessness. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is another up-and-comer, having been exposed on a grand state as the villain Black Manta in James Wan’s Aquaman—he’s also in the upcoming Matrix sequel and Netflix’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, in addition to being the protagonist of the upcoming Candyman, which has sadly been pushed back from its original October release date to an unspecified date in 2021. He recently won an Emmy Award for HBO’s Watchmen.

With this kind of talent behind it, one would hope that Furiosa will have a real chance of matching Fury Road, one of the most perfectly crafted action films of the last few decades.