“We thought ‘It’s unnecessary’. But the idea was there”: One of the Craziest Furiosa Scenes Almost Made it Into Charlize Theron’s Fury Road Before Getting Scrapped

The Mad Max saga has shaped the modern world, for better or for worse, and one can hardly complain about the domination of the ultra-violent, hyper-aggressive, and sadistic system that guides the franchise. With Anya Taylor-Joyʼs Furiosa now on the way, there is nothing to salvage in the Wasteland, other than perhaps the lingering love and joy of the audience for the franchise.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga furthers the legacy of Charlize Theronʼs Imperator – a character arc that dominated the storyline of George Millerʼs comeback saga, Mad Max: Fury Road. Despite the long journey from Mel Gibsonʼs post-apocalyptic debut in 1979, the franchise still holds the same mystic fascination 45 years later as Fury Road traces its path back to spawn a prequel to the 2015 film.

Mad Max Finds a Worthy Successor in Anya Taylor-Joy

In 2015, the dull modern cinematic landscape was defibrillated into a state of awareness after Tom Hardy unleashed chaos onto the screens with his Mad Max saga. With a troubled production that rivals even the most horrifying behind-the-scene stories, Fury Road went on to stand out in the festival circuit and later became an Oscar contender, taking home six out of the ten nominations.

Almost a decade later, Fury Road – which served as a glorious comeback for George Miller and a successful expansion of his Mad Max franchise – finds a prequel to the film by diving into the past of Imperator Furiosa. Starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the titular character and Chris Hemsworth in a never-before-seen role as the villainous warlord Dr. Dementus who, if Hemsworth is to be believed, is a “pretty horrible individual” [via Empire].

With an 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and promising early reviews, the critically favorite spin-off of the Mad Max films does find a worthy successor in Anya Taylor-Joy as she singlehandedly takes on the screaming Biker Horde in an attempt to protect the one thing she loves.

Furiosa Includes a Detail That Couldnʼt Make it to Fury Road

Reminiscing about the days of filming Fury Road, George Miller lets spill a variety of secrets that make the production of Furiosa that much more interesting. Speaking about the unbelievable chase sequence and the absurdly eccentric plot of the Tom Hardy film, the director claimed during an interview with /Film:

In ‘Fury Road’, we had a scene at night where there was somebody — there was a scene, a very brief scene, where someone was seen flying around on some sort of parasail sailing thing. It was storyboarded. But when we came to shooting it, or even long before we were going to shoot it, we thought, ‘It’s unnecessary.’ But the idea was there.

Anya Taylor-Joy who most evidently cashes in on the prequel arc to Furiosa, then finds the idea that couldnʼt find a place in Fury Road taking shape in her film. Miller further recalls how the franchiseʼs long time stuntman, Guy Norris, came up with the devious stunt:

I remember he said, as we were devising the sequence, he said, ‘How about we go back to these flying people in the air so we’re not only shooting underneath the war rig, or inside the cabin of the war rig, or on top of it or the back of it, but let’s have it attack from above, rather than the Pole Cats.’ So that’s how we started on that sequence.

Fortunately, Fury Road scrapped the idea which makes the film less cluttered among its already high-octane, adrenaline-pumping mechanically devious plot. On the other hand, the scene that manifests in Anya Taylor-Joyʼs Furiosa gives the film an extra punch and a sense of looming and maddening danger to the plot.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga premieres worldwide on 24 May 2024.