Mad Max director George Miller has been sharing his thoughts on the iconic character from Mad Max: Fury Road and her ultimate destiny.
Five years ago, when George Miller unleashed the magnificent, carnage-filled, action-packed maelstrom that was Mad Max: Fury Road upon audiences worldwide, there was also something of a curve in there too. For ultimately, it was Charlize Theron’s Furiosa character who was the film’s real action hero, even more so than the expected title character played by Tom Hardy.
In the years since, Theron has gone on to reinforce her action credentials with movies like Atomic Blonde and The Old Guard, becoming one of the top action stars in the world, underlining the impact that the Furiosa character first created.
It’s been well publicised that Miller has been trying to get a prequel movie off the ground to explore the character’s roots, in which Theron most likely won’t be featuring. In a recent interview with journalist Josh Horowitz, the veteran director elected to go the other way, musing upon the eventual fate of the Furiosa character.
Drawing upon mythologist Joseph Campbell’s writings for inspiration, Miller suggests that ultimately, Furiosa would go the way of many conquering heroes, eventually finding herself becoming the dictator in an effort to hold on to the peace they have secured.
“Campbell said that the usual story is that today’s hero becomes tomorrow’s tyrant. The hero is the agent of change. They basically relinquish self-interest in order for some common good,” said Miller. “[Campbell] basically says … you love what you’ve built, or saved, too much. You become holdfast. You become the orthodoxy. You develop the dogma and basically then you have to protect it. That tends to be the rhythm of these things.”
It’s certainly a premise that we’d love to see realised and we’d imagine we’re not alone. Mad Max: Fury Road still has legions of fans and Theron herself has spoken of the sadness she feels about the character’s planned return to the screen without her involvement. Miller however, has elected it seems, to go in another direction and we’ll most likely never get to see Furiosa’s story continued beyond Fury Road – but who knows? Perhaps the seed of a story has been planted in Miller’s mind.
As of right now though, we’d settle for any sort of continuation to the Mad Max story, as long as Miller is involved…
————
