Warner Bros. Pictures has shared a second trailer for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a follow-up to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road that will tell the origin story of Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa character—now played by the younger Anya Taylor-Joy of The Witch fame, who’s joined by Marvel star Chris Hemsworth as Biker Horde leader and warlord Dementus. George Miller, who returned to direct Furiosa, revealed in a recent interview with Empire that he had considered bringing Theron back to the role with the help of de-aging technology but ultimately decided against it because it wouldn’t be “persuasive.”
New trailer and synopsis:
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.
Miller explained:
- “It definitely would have been Charlize [had Furiosa been filmed before Fury Road]. I began thinking, ‘Oh, maybe we could do de-aging.'”
- “Then I watched really masterful filmmakers like Ang Lee and Martin Scorsese, doing Gemini Man and The Irishman, and I saw that it hadn’t been licked.”
- “All you’d be watching is, ‘Look how well the technology works?’ It would not have been persuasive.”
Miller on why she chose Taylor-Joy:
- “There’s an innately resolute quality in [Taylor-Joy]. She’s a very determined and rigorous person. She has a mystique about her. And she’d been trained young as a ballet dancer.”
- “Charlize trained young as a ballet dancer. There’s a precision to them that was needed.”
Theron revealed in 2020 that she was sad she couldn’t return:
- “It’s a tough one to swallow. Listen, I fully respect George, if not more so in the aftermath of making Fury Road with him. He’s a master, and I wish him nothing but the best.”
- “…it’s a little heartbreaking, for sure. I really love that character, and I’m so grateful that I had a small part in creating her. She will forever be someone I think of and reflect on fondly. Obviously, I would love to see that story continue, and if he feels like he has to go about it this way, then I trust him in that manner.”
- “We get so hung up on the smaller details that we forget the thing that we emotionally tap into has nothing to do with that minute thing that we’re focusing on.”