Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a 2024 Australian post-apocalyptic action film directed and produced by George Miller, who wrote the screenplay with Nico Lathouris. It is the fifth installment in Miller's Mad Max franchise, and the first not focused on series protagonist Max Rockatansky, instead acting as both a spin-off prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and an origin story for the Fury Road character Furiosa, portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy and Alyla Browne in the prequel.
Set 15 to 20 years before the events of Fury Road, the film follows the title character's life for over a decade, from her kidnapping by the forces of warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) to her ascension to the rank of Imperator. Tom Burke also stars as Praetorian Jack, a military commander who befriends Furiosa.
Several Fury Road cast members return in supporting roles, including John Howard, Nathan Jones, and Angus Sampson reprising their characters. Miller initially intended to shoot Furiosa back-to-back with Fury Road, but the former spent several years in development hell amidst salary disputes with Warner Bros. Pictures, Fury Road's distributor. Several crew members from Fury Road returned for Furiosa, including Lathouris, producer Doug Mitchell, composer Tom Holkenborg, costume designer Jenny Beavan and editor Margaret Sixel (Miller's wife). Filming took place in Australia from June to October 2022.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga premiered at the
77th Cannes Film Festival
on 15 May 2024. It was released theatrically in Australia on 23 May
2024 and in the United States the following day. The film received
positive reviews from critics, who praised the story, action sequences
and performances (particularly Taylor-Joy and Hemsworth), but became a
box-office bomb, grossing $172.7 million against its budget of $168 million.
Decades after the apocalypse, Australia
is a radioactive wasteland and the Green Place of Many Mothers is one
of the last remaining areas with fresh water and agriculture. Raiders
discover the Green Place while two children, Furiosa
and Valkyrie, are picking peaches. Furiosa tries to sabotage their
motorcycles, but the raiders capture her as a prize for their leader,
Dementus of the Biker Horde.
Mary, Furiosa's mother, pursues them to the Horde's camp, killing
all but one of the raiders, who brings Furiosa to Dementus. Furiosa
mortally wounds the last raider before he can reveal the Green Place's
location. Mary sneaks into the camp and rescues Furiosa, but Dementus
tracks them down. The mother stays back to buy Furiosa time to escape
and gives her a peach pit to remember her by, but Furiosa refuses to
leave Mary. Dementus forces Furiosa to watch her mother's crucifixion.
Haunted by his family's death, Dementus adopts an unwilling Furiosa as
his daughter, hoping she will lead him to the Green Place.
Sometime after, Dementus besieges the Citadel, another settlement
with fresh water and agriculture. However, the Horde is repelled by the
War Boys, the fanatical army of Citadel warlord Immortan Joe. Dementus changes course, using a Trojan Horse
strategy to capture Gastown, an oil refinery that supplies the Citadel
with gasoline. At peace negotiations, Joe recognizes Dementus's
authority over Gastown and increases its supplies of food and water in
exchange for the Horde's physician and Furiosa, who has tattooed a star chart
to the Green Place on her left arm to find her way home. Afterward, Joe
imprisons Furiosa with his stable of "wives" inside a vault. After
Joe's son, Rictus, shows an attraction towards her, Furiosa devises a
plan to escape. One night, Rictus breaks Furiosa out of Joe's vault to
rape her, but she slips from his grasp using a wig made from her own
hair and disappears.
Disguised as a mute teenage boy, Furiosa works her way up the
ranks of Joe's men for over a decade. She helps build the "War Rig", a
heavily armed supply tanker that can withstand raider attacks in the
lawless Wasteland. She plans to escape by hiding on the Rig when Joe
sends his top driver, Praetorian Jack, on a supply run. Disillusioned by
Dementus's callousness, his lieutenant, The Octoboss, goes rogue and
launches an air assault
on the Rig. His Mortiflyers slaughter the Rig's entire crew and destroy
Furiosa's hidden motorcycle, but Furiosa and Jack team up to defeat
them. Furiosa tries to carjack the Rig and drive home, but Jack easily
thwarts her. However, he recognizes her potential and offers to train
her to escape if she helps him rebuild his crew; Furiosa becomes Jack's
second-in-command and is promoted to Praetorian. She and Jack bond, and
resolve to escape together. They see an opportunity when Joe decides to
attack Gastown, which Dementus has mismanaged to near-ruin. Joe orders
Furiosa and Jack to collect weapons and ammunition from the Bullet Farm,
an allied mining facility.
However, Dementus ambushes them when they arrive. Furiosa and
Jack barely escape, and Furiosa's left arm is injured. Dementus chases
them down and tortures Jack to death. Furiosa escapes her chains by
severing her own injured arm, sacrificing her star map to escape. A lone
man
watches from afar as Furiosa struggles back to the Citadel, where she
and Joe's aide, The People Eater, form a strategy to avoid a trap
planned by Dementus. Instead, Dementus himself is lured into a trap at
the Citadel, and the War Boys crush the Horde in a 40-day war. Having
lost her path home, Furiosa shaves her head again, replaces her arm with
a mechanical prosthetic, and pursues the fleeing Dementus.
After an extended chase, Furiosa subdues Dementus in the desert.
Furiosa imprisons Dementus at the Citadel and uses his living body as
fertilizer to grow a peach tree from her mother's seed. Joe promotes
Furiosa to "Imperator" and gives her command of a new War Rig. She meets
Joe's five breeder wives in the vault where Joe once held her prisoner.
The night before another supply run, the "Five Wives" hide in Furiosa's
Rig.
