Furiosa: Mad Max's warrior fuels George Miller's addiction

The post-apocalyptic and supercharged world of the “Mad Max” franchise is “addicting,” confided Australian director George Miller, who returns with a fifth installment eagerly awaited by the public. Entitled Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, this new part must be unveiled with great fanfare during the next Cannes Film Festival, where it will be screened out of competition. The film returns to the origins of Furiosa, the formidable warrior played by Charlize Theron in 2015 in the fourth part, Mad Max: Fury Road. The young protagonist will this time be played by Anya Taylor-Joy, until now best known for her talents as a chess champion in the Netflix series The Queen's Game.

While waiting for the film's Cannes premiere, George Miller revealed some details during CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Monday. The new version of “Mad Max” stems from the intensive work carried out for Fury Road, explained the director during this exhibition of cinema professionals. For this film, he had sketched the childhood and the journey of the characters in detail, in order to offer reference points to the actors and the film crew.

But after the success of Fury Road, which grossed $380 million and won six Oscars, the filmmaker realized that the roots imagined for the film constituted "a rich story to tell." In the new part, young Furiosa has been kidnapped from her home and finds herself embroiled in a battle between Immortan Joe - the villain of Fury Road - and his rival Dementus, played by Chris Hemsworth (Thor in the Avengers saga).

The franchise thus takes a new turn, after having started at full speed in 1979: in the original Mad Max, Mel Gibson made an impression as a police officer dressed in leather, battling a gang of wild bikers.

At the time, Miller was working as a doctor in his native Australia. As a young movie buff, he was deeply touched by the numerous road accident victims encountered at the hospital.

Lacking a sufficient budget, he had given up shooting in big cities and had set his plot in the desert landscapes of a post-apocalyptic society. “It was a stroke of luck,” explained the 79-year-old filmmaker. Accidentally, the film, which would otherwise have been set in the present day from a naturalistic perspective, turned out to be more allegorical.” “That's kind of what led to Mad Max, and that's why we keep doing them,” he added. Because they are very addictive.”

The first film grossed $100 million. Its worldwide success spawned Mad Max 2 (1981) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). Fast and violent, these films rely on a visual language instantly understandable to spectators around the world, regardless of subtitles or dubbing.

“In Japan, Mad Max was considered a kind of samurai. The French saw it as a motor western. In Scandinavia, he was a Viking,” Mr. Miller said. The fourth part came much later, as the director tried his hand at a wide variety of genres, including family films like Babe and Happy Feet. We had to wait until 2015 for Fury Road. The character of Max, now played by Tom Hardy, is relegated to the background by Furiosa, the tough guy.

With its feminist theme and its breathtaking action sequences, the film left its mark. It received ten Oscar nominations, notably in the best film and best director categories. Furiosa, will be “different,” Mr. Miller promised. “A film should not be a repetition of what we have just done,” added the director. It must be singularly familiar, as I like to say.”