George Miller Explained Why Charlize Theron Isn’t Back for ‘Furiosa’

The Mad Max franchise will continue with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, set to be released on May 24 after concluding its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 15.

The George Miller-directed film features a talented cast, with the likes of Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, and Tom Burke playing lead roles. Fans of the franchise have pointed out the notable omission of Charlize Theron, who played the character of Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

Miller came out and explained her absence from the film in an interview with ComicBook.com. With Furiosa being a prequel, Miller referenced The Irishman and Gemini Man, deeming the digital de-aging technology used in those films to be too distracting from the performance to be used to make Charline Theron look younger for Furiosa.

As explained by the Australian auteur, the reasons behind Theron not coming back for the Mad Max: Fury Road prequel ended up being a combination of Miller’s hesitation to use the technology and the studio’s indecisiveness over the film. In November 2017, Miller’s production company filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. over the delay in payment of multiple crew members, which led to the delay of other potential films in the franchise, like Furiosa, and as Miller pointed out, the company has gone through multiple changes in leadership since Fury Road, seemingly contributing to the delay.

The setbacks led to Miller deciding to recast the titular character, and Anya Taylor-Joy bagged the role, following a referral from Last Night in Soho director Edgar Wright. Miller was also impressed with Taylor-Joy’s performance in Wright’s film and locked her down for the role after an audition with the “Mad as Hell” monologue from the 1976 film Network.

Furiosa has received rave reviews so far, with the film apparently being closer to the first two Mad Max films, in terms of style, than Fury Road. Apart from Taylor-Joy being recast as Furiosa, there is another notable change in the cast, as Australian actor Lachy Hulme will take over from Hugh Keays-Byrne as the character Immortan Joe. Keays-Byrne also played the role of villain “Toecutter” in the first Mad Max film.

(feature image: Warner Bros. Entertainment)