Get your Simpsons “That’s good, that’s bad, potassium benzoate” GIFs ready, folks, because George Miller’s about to take you on a ride. Per The Playlist, the Mad Max: Fury Road director has now confirmed that he’s working on a prequel to his high-octane travelogue centered on the character of former Imperator, current badass Furiosa—except Charlize Theron isn’t set to star.
The script for the prequel was actually written back before Fury Road was even filmed, in part as a way to explain the character, both to Theron and to Miller himself. Years of profit-based legal disputes with Warner Bros., plus the COVID-related shutdown of his current project, the Idris Elba-Tilda Swinton feature Three Thousand Years Of Longing, stopped it from getting produced until now. All those hurdles have now been blown through like so many soon-to-be-murdered War Boys in front of a big rig, though, and so Miller is ready to put some forward momentum on the movie—except not with Theron as Furiosa, because she’s only supposed to be 20 or so in the film.
To which we have to politely ask Miller: Dear sir, have you looked at Charlize Theron lately? An industry that regularly casts 30-year-olds as high schoolers and men as other men 20 years their junior could definitely accommodate the 44-year-old Theron playing her somewhat less-ageless self. Miller did apparently toy with the idea of giving Theron the Irishman treatment, but ultimately discarded the idea: “Despite the valiant attempts on The Irishman, I think there’s still an uncanny valley,” Miller said in a New York Times piece published today. “Everyone is on the verge of solving it, particular Japanese video-game designers, but there’s still a pretty wide valley, I believe.”
In any case, Miller is currently casting on the project, inviting some lucky young actress to open herself up to comparisons to one of the most accomplished action stars and performances of the last several years. There’s no word yet on when the film might actually go into production, but Miller’s clearly anxious to get it done.