With just over nine months until the Mad Max: Fury Road origin story of renegade warrior Furiosa premieres, speculation is mounting the prequel could confirm “a slew of Mad Max theories”.
Everything from when the apocalypse happened, the story of Immortan Joe and Furiosa herself, and even rumours of a return of original Mad Max character Goose.
The fifth film in director George Miller’s dystopian series – filmed across six locations in New South Wales last year – went into post-production on August 31 after shooting kicked off in May in outback towns Silverton and Broken Hill (as well as at several Sydney movie studio locations).
According to pop culture website Screen Rant, it is now time to update the hard-core Mad Max movie fandom with some spin-off storyline theories.
Of particular note is whatever happened to Australian actor Steve Bisley’s character, Jim Goose, who played a key role as Max Rockatansky’s police partner and whether or not he actually died after being burned in the original 1979 movie starring Mel Gibson.
Everyone reckons he died (especially seeing him as unrecognisable in hospital), but Screen Rant (SR) sources suggest he may have been left in a “critical state” and survived after civilisation collapsed.
Based on the official Warner Bros synopsis, Furiosa‘s timeline sits somewhere between the first Mad Max movie and 1981’s Mad Max 2 (aka The Road Warrior) set in a post-apocalyptic world.
“By this logic, Goose should still be alive during Furiosa’s events, leaving room for the movie to finally confirm what happened to him after he survived his attack from the first film,” it speculates.
“Furiosa can finally confirm or deny this theory decades later.”
We may also get an explainer on the cause of the apocalypse based on the opening line “as the world fell”.
“The Mad Max movies have blamed the apocalypse on water shortages, fuel shortages, nuclear warfare, and a combination of the above … Furiosa could end this trend with a definitive answer”.
Let’s unpack the other theories that may shake the Mad Max universe.
George Miller has cast his new Furiosa, as Chris Hemsworth and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II join.
Armed and dangerous
Charlize Theron starred alongside Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road and was “disappointed” she was not considered to play a younger Furiosa in the prequel.
Her back story, nor how she lost her arm, were never explained.
During casting, Miller met with The Queen’s Gambit star Anya Taylor-Joy immediately after seeing her performance in a rough edit of Last Night in Soho, according to director Edgar Wright.
The job of the younger version of Fury Road’s tough heroine was hers.
The 26-year-old worked hard, brought her cats to Australia for seven months, and even revealed on The Graham Norton Show last November that she drove a car for the first time on the Furiosa set.
“What. A . Rideeeee,” Taylor-Joy wrote on her Instagram at the time.
“Thank you to those of the wasteland – the crazies who have run amok with me up and down this country. The most fun, the most resilient, the most talented.”
Location set shot from Furiosa last year. Photo: IMDb
So what’s in store for her?
We know that from the official Warner Bros. synopsis, a “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”.
SR says Chris Hemsworth will play this “enigmatic character” and together they sweep “through the Wasteland [and] come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe”.
While the two tyrants’ battle for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.”
Taylor-Joy told IndieWire Furiosa was the bloodiest production she ever worked on, “an impressive accolade” considering her roles in Split, Thoroughbreds, The Menu, Last Night In Soho and The Northman.
“It’s the dirtiest and the bloodiest I have ever been, which is saying something, genuinely saying something … Any time I get to be dirty or bloody and not perfectly prim and pretty, I’m just having a ball, that’s where I feel most comfortable,” she was quoted as saying.
Let’s address Immortan Joe
SR reckons Furiosa will reveal Immortan Joe is an inherited title rather than a mortal man.
“The comic backstory of Immortan Joe revealed that he was a military man who gained a cultish following after the end of the world and used this to his advantage by pillaging cities until his men eventually overtook the Citadel after a bloody siege,” SR reports.
“However, the fact that Furiosa’s Immortan Joe actor Tom Burke took over the role from the prequel’s original villain Yahya Abdul-Mateen II implies that multiple people might have inherited (and later lost) the title Immortan Joe, possibly by defeating and ousting each other.”
Mad Max: Fury Road producer and first assistant director PJ Voeten has said of casting Chris Hemsworth (per IMDb): “George saw Chris [Hemsworth] initially as a courtesy and then fell in love with the idea”.
“He’s going to play totally against type, the lead baddie. Unfortunately, we’ve got to find all of our other characters that aren’t around anymore: a new Immortan, a new Bullet Farmer, and a few others.”
So, could Hemsworth be Immortan Joe?
Whether Hemsworth’s Dementus ends up beating Immortan Joe and taking his place, one thing that viewers can be certain of is the fact that Furiosa will be a violent, bloody ride, says SR.
On location with his closely guarded script. George Miller’s screenplay is a tightly held secret, only to be revealed next year! Photo: IMDb
Let’s be clear. Nobody has access ahead of time to the actual storyline.
Miller, whose budget is hovering around $US168m ($262m) penned the script with Mad Max: Fury Road co-writer Nico Lathouris and produces alongside his longtime partner, Oscar-nominated Mad Max: Fury Road and Babe producer Doug Mitchell.
He has held onto his behind-the-scenes Oscar-winning creative team (costume, make-up and production designers), so the die-hards can look forward to even bigger and better stunts and action than in Fury Road.
“We fashion stories out of everything,” Miller told the Los Angeles Times last year.
“And some of our stories are delusional. Some of our stories are nourishing and healing. And some of our stories are very, very toxic.
“But whatever it is, that’s the only way we can negotiate this thing we call experience and existence.”
Furiosa will premiere internationally in May next year
The post ‘A violent, bloody ride’: The many fan questions hanging over the <i>Mad Max</i> prequel <i>Furiosa</i> appeared first on The New Daily.
