2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road relaunched the Mad Max franchise 30 years after the release of Beyond Thunderdome, and the fifth Mad Max movie is on track for release nearly a decade after its predecessor. However, rather than the next entry in this sag being a direct Fury Road sequel, filmmaker George Miller is winding the clock back to show the origins of Furiosa, who was played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road. The Northman’s Anya Taylor-Joy will play the younger version of the character in the Furiosa spinoff, and apparently the actress is looking to emulate Theron in a key way.
Anya Taylor-Joy, George Miller and the rest of the Furiosa cast and crew are gearing up to begin shooting in New South Wales, Australia soon. The upcoming movie’s team also includes costume designer, Jenny Beavan, who informed Variety that she’s heard that Taylor-Joy is wanting to shave her head like Charlize Theron did in Mad Max: Fury Road. As Beavan put it:
She wants to, but George doesn’t want her to. So I don’t know whether she will or not.
So evidently Any Taylor-Joy’s hairstyle in Furiosa, or lack thereof, hasn’t been nailed down just yet. I can understand where the star of Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit is coming from, because if Charlize Theron could rock a shaved head as Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, why couldn’t the younger version of the character to the same in her own spinoff tale? On the other hand, George Miller might want to work up to Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa having her head shaved rather than have her look like that the entire movie. Who knows, maybe the younger Furiosa won’t have a shaved head at all in order to visually distinguish the character at a different point in her life.
We’ll have a better idea of what’s happening when pictures from the Furiosa set start trickling out, whether they’re officially released or leaked. No specific plot details for the spinoff have been revealed yet, but along with her shaved head, Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa also stood out with her mechanical left arm. It’s a good bet the Furiosa spinoff will show how that appendage was lost, and I’d also wager we’ll learn how the eponymous character ended up in the service of Immortan Joe, played in Fury Road by the late Hugh Keays-Byrne.
It was officially announced back in May 2020 that the Furiosa spinoff had entered active development, and George Miller selected Anya Taylor-Joy as the lead actress after seeing her performance in Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho. She’ll be joined onscreen by Chris Hemsworth playing the main villain and Tom Burke in an undisclosed role. Aquaman’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was initially attached to the cast, but he later dropped out due to a scheduling conflict, and Burke was tapped to replace him.
Furiosa is set to drop in theaters on May 24, 2024, having been pushed back from its previous June 23, 2023 slot. If you’re looking to enjoy new Anya Taylor-Joy content now, The Northman is playing in theaters.