Film

Here’s What We Know About ‘Furiosa’ Prequel Starring Anya Taylor-Joy

Lead Photo: Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.

We now know more about Academy Award-winning filmmaker George Miller’s upcoming project Furiosa. The film is a stand-alone prequel and spin-off to the critically acclaimed 2015 action flick Mad Max: Fury Road.

Furiosa will star Argentine-British actress Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit) in the title role. In Fury Road, Oscar winner Charlize Theron (Monster) played Furiosa, a war captain for the film’s main villain, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who switched allegiances to help liberate a group of his concubines.

Now, fans of the Mad Max franchise will get a glimpse of Furiosa’s origin story with Taylor-Joy heading the dystopian narrative. The synopsis from the press release reads: 

“As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland they come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe.  While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.”

Recently, Furiosa started production in South Wales, Australia. Along with Taylor-Joy, Furiosa will star Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Love and Thunder) and Tom Burke (Mank). Nathan Jones and Angus Sampson are set to reprise their roles as Rictus Erectus and The Organic Mechanic from Mad Max: Fury Road.

Taylor-Joy was most recently seen this year in the Viking epic The Northman from director Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse). In April, she told Remezcla that she feels a lot more comfortable playing a character who can roll around in the dirt instead of wearing 19th-century dresses like she does in her 2020 film Emma.

“It was my job to be muddy,” she said of her Northman role. “There are photographs of me on the set where I’m just lying on the wet, muddy ground and am so happy just soaking in the energy like the hippie that I am.”

Taylor-Joy will get the opportunity to get as dusty as she wants when she makes her post-apocalyptic trek through the hostile terrain of Furiosa, which is scheduled to hit theaters on May 24, 2024.