Charlize Theron says it's "heartbreaking" she's not playing Furiosa in George Miller's new prequel
Aux Features Film
Fans of Mad Max: Fury Road (so… literally everyone?) experienced a bit of whiplash when filmmaker George Miller revealed that he’s working on a spinoff about beloved badass Furiosa—but it won’t star Charlize Theron. Plans for the spinoff were revealed in an oral history of the making of Fury Road published by the New York Times back in May, in which Miller said that the upcoming project is a prequel that centers on the life of a younger Furiosa. The filmmaker has reportedly looked at Killing Eve star Jodie Comer for the part, and while we most definitely respect that choice, we’re not the only ones feeling a little bummed that Theron won’t be reprising her most iconic role to date.
While promoting her role in Netflix’s The Old Guard, Theron spoke with THR about Miller’s decision, which she called “heartbreaking”:
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. Yeah, 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.
Theron echoes the mixed feelings many fans share: Ultimately, we trust and respect the hell out of George Miller, and we’re sure the Furiosa prequel will be great. We’re just kinda sad that we won’t get to see Charlize Theron tackling that role again anytime soon.
62 Comments
I would love to see her play Furiosa again & she would be my #1 choice to star in a spinoff film. Also it sucks for her that she doesn’t get to do it! Though hopefully and presumably she is still getting offered other good roles. Having said that if they can get Jodie Comer to play young Furiosa, I would definitely watch that
I’m not sure that I’ve ever felt this range of emotions, or as conflicted as I am for my crushing disappointment that Theron won’t be playing Furiosa, to my shear joy that Jody Comer might play her, to the love and respect I have for Miller and his work. I’m going to need some drinks and therapy to figure this one out.
…she would be my #1 choice to star in a spinoff film.I tend to think she did. It was called Mad Max: Fury Road.
No, she was just a Mary Sue shoved into emasculate Max. Wah, wah! /s You’re correct, it should’ve just been called Furiosa. She’s a much more compelling character than Max ever was.
The whole thing seems like a mess, as if Miller was pressured into making a decision on the follow-up the minute Fury Road came out. It’s a sequel, it’s a prequel, it has Max in it, it doesn’t, Charlize wants to be in it, well she can’t.I’m not too upset that Fury Road doesn’t have a direct sequel, cos we can all agree that just cos a film is great, we don’t necessarily need more of it, right? The chance to see Furiosa again is likewise great, though I do hope they get it right and aren’t pissing off Charlize Theron for no reason.
I’m extremely dubious that it will end up a mess. Miller has a long track record of doing what he wants, and what he thinks will serve the story idea he’s got in mind. Maybe he’s had evolving concepts of the movie, but I really doubt what we end up seeing will be some compromised thing mandated by an interfering studio–unless Miller himself ends up not directing it. Then, of course, all bets are off.
I would think that once the film comes together, it’ll be good. My concern is that Miller’s vision for the project seems to change with the wind. Still, I look forward to it.
As much as I’d like to see more of Charlize as Furiosa, would a sequel be compelling? There are a few story lines that could work, but “happily ever after in the Citadel” isn’t one of them, and I really want her to have her happily ever after.So… a prequel makes sense narratively. Unfortunately, that means recasting a younger actress as Furiosa. We’d be just as off-put by CG de-aging to let Charlize play her younger self.
Sequels are generally more compelling that prequels though, aren’t they? Good sequels might be fairly rare but good prequels are gold dust.I had what I thought was a cool idea for a sequel a few years back. I can’t remember it all (cos I dreamt some of it), but it involved the Citadel being under attack, and Furiosa and the wives taking the decision to leave, rather than risk the water infrastructure being destroyed. There was two be two sequels, a Max one and a Furiosa one, running almost concurrently.
Would be interesting to have a split screen story (kinda like Godfather II) with a younger Furiosa contrasted with how she is in present (like just prior to Fury Road – maybe how she ended up in such a fucked up place as the Citadel).
“I was off-put by CG de-aging” —nobody who raved about The Irishman
Don’t make it a prequel – problem solved, you can cast Charlize Theron again. How many good prequels are there anyway?
Does that solve the problem? Would Theron actually do it, or would she be “heartbroken” that they won’t pay her fee, and it won’t fit into her schedule? Not a knock on Theron, she could be legitimately heartbroken that some other actor gets to play Furiosa, but also have no desire to spend 10 weeks in the desert for not much of a payday.
Does The Godfather Part II count?
It’s more sequel than prequel in my opinion.
If you discount The Godfather part II for only being half prequel …… er …The Good, the Bad and the Ugly… er … … nope, I’m done.
Better Call Saul and Metal Gear Solid 3. That’s the entire list.
Minions?
Movie prequels are almost always inferior additions to a story, which only makes sense. By design, they are robbed of a whole lot of narrative suspense, stories where the eventual fate of at least some of the characters involved is already known. Nobody watches Solo, for instance, thinking that Han, Chewie, or Lando are ever in any danger. You even know contours of the story in advance – at some point, Han will meet Lando and win the Falcon in a card game. Audience enjoyment comes down to how much you want to see events you already know about arrive at a conclusion you’re already aware of. Which, most of the time, sucks.
I think the lack of peril to main characters is a bit overrated in terms of why prequels don’t work. First of all, in 99% of movies protagonists don’t die, so the idea that Luke Skywalker’s safety in the OT was any less secure than Chewie’s in Solo is an exaggeration. Second, we watch plenty of films where we know how the movie’s going to turn out (the American hockey team isn’t going to take the silver in Miracle, for example), because a story isn’t just what happens, it’s how it happens, and why.The problem with Solo is that the script reads like someone took the brainstorming board where a writer’s room was breaking down everything they knew or found interesting about Han Solo in order to get ideas for a story, and then just threw all those ideas into a script like a weird mad libs checklist: how’d he meet Chewie? how’d he meet Lando? what’s up with that Kessel Run thing? how’d he win the Falcon? By the time they were answering questions nobody wanted answered, like “how’d he get that vest?” “what’s up with those dice?” and “how’d he get that cool name?” a lot of people had tapped out, since the movie was more like a grocery list than a real story. It was like that flashback in The Last Crusade where young Indy gets his hat, his fear of snakes, the scar on his chin, and an appreciation of the value of a bullwhip all in a single five-minute action sequence…just drawn out to feature length.
Better Call Saul is a good prequel, though it admittedly hasn’t finished yet. To Kill a Mockingbird is technically the prequel to Go Set a Watchman, only the latter was so bad it wasn’t actually published until decades later.
Are you a fan of Temple of Doom? It’s kind of a failure as a prequel—an Indy who’s been through this earlier adventure that features magic should have a harder time scoffing at the idea that the ark of the covenant might have actual magic powers in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then again, that disregard for effective sequel logic might be what makes Temple of Doom fun.UPDATE—On second thought, let me add:Escape from the Planet of the Apes Conquest of the Planet of the ApesWonder WomanX-Men First ClassCube ZeroIt’s not a long list, but it isn’t nothing.
Rogue One is a quality prequel, sketchy zombie CGI Fishers and Cushings notwithstanding. Accomplishes this narrative trick by expanding on a tiny but pivotal part of the original story, but fleshing it out with completely new characters, and has a completely logical built-in reason why you never hear from or about those characters ever again.
Rogue One is an absolutely terrible prequel. The climax at Scarif is the only quality part of that movie and the only critic element in linking it to a New Hope. If you excised everything before the fleet arrives there you’d still walk away with the same satisfaction.
The first part of the movie is muddled by reshoots and labors under weak pacing, but as a prequel it works overall: it doesn’t break the movies that follow it (at least not too badly), in Scarrif and the events leading up to it, it tells a story that fits into the overarching storyline and a makes for a compelling chapter (how the Rebellion scored that first victory that’s mentioned in the original opening crawl to Star Wars).
Felicity Jones was terrible in her role, she didn’t make me care about her character. I still stand by my statement about excising everything before Scarif and it would still get the same reviews.
I agree that Jyn is the movie’s biggest problem, but I don’t blame Jones. It looks like she was asked to give two separate and nearly opposite performances of the character—one cynical and unsympathetic, the other much softer and emotional. Then the movie was put together using mainly the latter portrayal, with bits of the former coming through at odd moments and the inconsistency kinda flattens the character out. I kinda wish I could agree with your excision plan, but the two best moments on Scarif require set up from earlier in the movie: Jyn handing K2SO the gun, and Chirrut and Baze’s deaths on the beach. Without those, it’s just a long action set piece.
Normally I don’t like blame actors for their performance, but having seen her wooden performance on SNL right before I saw Rogue One I can only conclude that the role was not with in her range of acting ability. I mean Chirrut and Baze would have been much better characters to flesh out in the movie. I agree it’s a long action set piece but I’m pretty most people expected that given we all knew from the beginning it would be about how the Rebel Alliance got the Death Star Plans.
I found it to be one of those films where, as far as I can remember, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a sequel or prequel.
Yeah I feel like the thing to do would be to make it a loose sequel with Theron in the lead, and incorporate flashbacks with a younger actress to tell whatever story he has in mind for a prequel. Everybody wins.
A Miller-helmed and -written prequel is unlikely to be a standard-issue prequel. His treatment of the Mad Max series to date is a good roadmap to what this is likely to be. There is very little connective tissue between any of them and he treats continuity with indifference, if not outright hostility. I’m expecting another story that feels like a standalone, mythic tale.
Or keep it a prequel. Charlize hasn’t aged a day in about 25 years. Would anyone here NOT buy her as the younger version of the character with a minimal amount of makeup?
Rogue One?
from the POV of an evengelical Christian…. does the Jewish Bible count?
If you mean the Old and New Testaments, the former was written and compiled before the latter and therefore cannot count as a prequel.Of course, from a Jewish POV, the New Testament is just inept fanfic.And from a Mormon perspective, the Book of Mormon is a sidequel.
ah, but in the Beggining was the Logos, and the Logos was Christ, right? And along with God the Father, knew all that was to come to pass… and the Crucvifiction was the central axis mundi of time and space, around which all of history and human existence revolves… so from that point of view, the New Testament is primary, and whatever manifested prior to that, and was compiled prior to that, is Second to the Primacy of Jesus, PBUH etc etc
I don’t know, dude, I’m an atheist.
well, yeah, me too, but i still read and travel
i was guided once to the lowest strata of the Firmament itself, and do you know what was holding up all of existence? An atheist. I was blown away. And yes, he was standing on the shoulders of another atheist, but i don’t think they knew each other.
Weed never seemed to have an effect on me, so I have to take your word for it.
Well there’s the Star Wars Pre… umm… Hey, what about the Alien Pre… uhhh… Well there is that new show Star Trek Discov… d’oh…
Ouija: Origin of Evil is a good prequel. (This is a serious comment, not a joke.)
Does Rogue One count? Or Prometheus? They weren’t better than the originals in anyway but I would concede that both are quite entertaining and definitely rewatchable.
I’m just shocked this turns out to be apparently the sole time in the Mad Max series that Miller actually cares about timeline placement and continuity!
…the upcoming project is a prequel that centers on the life of a younger Furiosa.
I love Charlize Theron. Love her. But I don’t think she would be able to pull off a younger version of her Fury Road self.
I don’t think we need a direct sequel with the same characters – that story is complete. The obvious choice would be to follow the series tradition and take Max into a new scenario (where he may or may not be the main character).It never even occurred to me that that Furiosa’s backstory suggested a possible prequel. She was a child-victim, then gradually gained agency while helping to enrich and empower a tyrant. Why would I want to watch that?For comparison, Conan the Barbarian gets interesting when he becomes a powerful adult. The story before that is just depressing.
That’s too bad, because Theron has such a youthful quality that she could very easily play Furiosa in a prequel. But maybe the prequel goes too far back, and Miller didn’t want to have to resort to using technology to make her look unnaturally young? Jodie Comer would be an awfully good younger version of the character. Ultimately I hope it works out, but sad Theron isn’t being a part of it. Her work in the first was Oscar-worthy.
Miller has said exactly that—he considered casting Theron in the prequel and using de-aging technology to mitigate the difference, but after watching The Irishman he felt that the technology just isn’t there yet; he found the appearance of the younger versions of De Niro et al. to be somewhat distracting. Hopefully he’s still around for a long, long time and he and Theron can make a sequel together down the road.Edit: Here’s a pull quote of Miller discussing why he decided against going the route of casting Theron and de-aging her:“For the longest time, I thought we could just use CG de-aging on Charlize, but I don’t think we’re nearly there yet,” Miller said. “Despite the valiant attempts on ‘The Irishman,’ I think there’s still an uncanny valley. Everyone is on the verge of solving it, particular Japanese video-game designers, but there’s still a pretty wide valley, I believe.”From: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/movies/mad-max-sequel-furiosa.html
I generally don’t “get” video game streaming; like, I understand it as a younger brother who got a lot of legitimate joy growing up watching his older brother play video games, and I even enjoy speedrunning as it has such a specific goal in mind. But in terms of just watching folks play games like normal people, it’s not for me.I would make an exception to watch George Miller play literally any video game.
John Carpenter is an avid gamer, too (and they’re roughly the same age). Imagine both of them playing, say, Mario Kart side by side on the samr sofa, with a little shop talk about directing thrown in.
This is a rare situation where people would do better watching Marvel films than Scorcese films, because de-aging works really well in Captain Marvel, and seeing it would give Miller a good idea of why the de-aging in The Irishman is so bad. The only scenes where de-aging Samuel Jackson doesn’t work in Captain Marvel are the scenes where Fury has to run—since no matter what tech you use, Jackson runs like someone who’s retirement age rather than someone in their forties (and even when he was younger, Jackson didn’t seem to like running on film). The Irishman’s de-aging totally falls apart because you can smooth out his face, but you can’t make De Niro skinny again, you can’t make him sound like young De Niro, and you can’t make him move like he did in Mean Streets or even in Goodfellas anymore. The worst de-aging moment in the Irishman is the one where he’s supposed to beat down the grocer for disciplining his kid, and he’s trying to kick the guy like his character kicked Billy Bats in Goodfellas and De Niro’s seventysomething year old body just can’t convincingly perform those movements anymore.Theron wouldn’t have that problem. She’s a famously fit 44 years old, so she can still physically perform the part of a younger woman. Miller should give her the chance to prove it. Honestly, this is one of those situations where Theron should probably find one of the FX houses that do de-aging, and have them make a screen test for her. My bet is she’d make any money she spends on it back, with interest.
As soon as I read “the worst de-aging moment in the Irishman”, I immediately knew you were talking about the beat down scene. I honestly had a hard time telling if he was even supposed to be beating the shit out of the guy or if it was supposed to be a “he’s staying down out of respect/fear of who this guy is” type thing because those hits obviously had no power behind them at all.
Yeah, that scene edged out De Niro’s flashback to World War II, where he’s supposed to be in his early twenties but looks like a fifty year-old private. I mean, it’s still impressive that they erased 25 years off his face, but there are limits.
I realize that this article is focused on Charlize Theron and her fans (and I like her!), but one of Mad Max: Fury Road’s hallmarks it’s allegiance to practical effects. George Miller’s obviously not the time to give it a chance when, if he casts right which he’s done before, he can get it right anyway.
I really like Comer as Villanelle, and I didn’t realize until looking at Theron’s IMDB that she does have a striking resemblance to a younger Theron. I’m sure she’d be fine in the role, and honestly, after you’ve recast Max, everything’s on the table. Heck, Miller’s shown a willingness to bring back actors to play different roles in that universe, so he could both recast Furiosa and have Theron in the movie if he wanted to (and Theron was willing).I was just responding to Miller’s quote about wanting to try de-aging on Theron, but being dissuaded because of The Irishman, a movie that really pushed the technology’s limits to try to de-age a bunch of guys in their late 70s. While I love the tactile, practical effects feel of the Mad Max movies, it’s easy to forget that Miller has done at least one movie that was heavy on digital effects (Babe: Pig in the City) and that he’s also done animation, so it’s not like de-aging an actor would be completely outside his skill set.
That’s true, he does keep learning and change up—Fury Road’s best evolution is not tech at all and was moving away from Max and men after all, and it is filled with returning cast too. I don’t know that Miller moves unless he thinks the tech is ready what he wants though—Babe used uncanny valley to it’s advantage, for example. I also have think that being 75 he’s work toward whatever’s the most developed and feasible. He’s never going to get the backing that Scorcese did—though it seems unlikely that he or the cast he recruits would need the payouts that the Irishman set and it’s not as tall a technical challenge—but he’s also not as driven to test tech like say Ang Lee and doesn’t have the relationship with Theron I guess to make sure she’s her next lead–unless it turns out she is.
On one hand, Theron is a fabulously wealthy, talented, connected, respected actor on a global stage, so, the violin of pity I have to play for her is microscopic. Your heart shall go on, Charlie. Sit back and enjoy that *googlegooglegoogle* well earned $160M fortune. Give the new chick a crack at some of what you’ve got.On the other hand, she DID originate that particular character and put in the huge physical and mental work required to make her the best part of that movie. I know I’m in the extreme minority, but I really didn’t care for Fury Road (or the originals, so, there’s me), but Theron was an undeniable total bad ass as Furiosa. I get her being upset.
Furiosa kind of had a thin backstory in Fury Road, which was largely resolved by the plot. Like, we saw the all-woman outpost she was kidnapped from, we met the guy who kidnapped her, we saw what happened to the Green Place, and we know exactly where she winds up in Joe’s organization. To the extent the Star Wars prequels were justified (which is itself questionable), it’s because we knew the “what” of Anakin’s backstory but not the “how” or “why.” In Furiosa’s case, there aren’t any burning questions about the “how” or “why.” Everything happened because Immortan Joe is Evil. Furiosa’s reign is the more interesting storyline.
Miller can release the version, sans Theron and by the time the movie comes out, they can release a deepfaked Theron version. Problem solved!
it could work if someone equally dynamic fills the role – but who, idk.
ironic that, yknow, max was played by another younger actor in fury road.
I’m far less interested in what happened to Furiosa before Fury Road (sex slavery and child soliders—- yay?) and more interested in how she would defend the Citadel against an invasion.
Obviously I’ll watch it, and I’ll probably love it, but the concept isn’t as compelling to me as what happens next to battle-haggered Furiosa.
Maybe they’ll go the “X-men” route and skip around the timeline and just have two Furiosas like young/old Charles Xavier and young/old Magneto.