‘Furiosa’ Begins Filming, Announces Chris Hemsworth

Furiosa begins filming

Chris Hemsworth has announced on social media that production on George Miller’s Furiosa begun on June 1st.

 

Seven years after the release of Mad Max: Fury Road, and many years after Miller announced he was working on a prequel focused on the Charlize Theron character, filming is finally happening in Australia. The cast is led by Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays the title character, as well as Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke, who replaced Yahya Abdul-Mateen II last year after the Watchmen actor had a scheduling conflict.

 

George Miller is back in the director’s chair, and will also be credited as co-writer and producer, along with his long-time producing partner Doug Mitchell. With this update, Miller is keeping his word, as he said a few years ago he would begin production on Furiosa as soon as he finished with his latest epic Three Thousand Years of Longing. That movie just made its worldwide debut at the Cannes Film Festival, and shortly after, premiered its first trailer online (check it out here).

 

According to Miller, Furiosa will take place over the span of fifteen years, a clear deviation from what he did in Fury Road, which took place over a couple of days. The director is also reassembling the dream team he put together for the 2015 film, with Oscar-winner Jenny Beavan back as costume designer, and Tom Holkenborg, a.k.a. Junkie XL, back as the composer. From Hemsworth’s photo, we gather that Simon Duggan (The Great Gatsby) will replace Oscar-nominee John Seale as the cinematographer of the film. Beavan told Variety recently that Taylor-Joy wanted to shave her head, much like Charlize Theron did when she played the character, but George Miller didn’t want it:

 

“She wants to [shave her head], but George doesn’t want her to. So I don’t know whether she will or not.”

 

Furiosa is currently aiming for a May 24th, 2024, release. Even though it has started filming two years in advance, it’s not very likely the movie will be moved up and released at an earlier time. The studio probably wants it as a summer blockbuster, and with the number of VFX shots it will probably have, it’s unlikely they will get it done in time for summer 2023. Visual effects companies are struggling to finish the projects they are working on due to the large number of delays that happened because of the pandemic.