Furiosa (Movie)

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    At the Movies, the Apocalypse Has Already Arrived

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    In “Joker: Folie à Deux,” “Megalopolis” and more, the sense of an isolated and fearful humanity pervades this season’s films.The apocalypse started earlier this year.Back in March, “Dune: Part Two” picked up the story of Paul Atreides, set 10,000 years after a war with artificial-intelligence beings nearly obliterated humanity. The “Dune” saga suggests history is cyclical, even if the details rearrange themselves. Paul’s world once again teeters on the brink, though the characters don’t know just how close to the edge they are. No matter. The precarity is plenty palpable.Hollywood has sustained a long love affair with tales of apocalypse — look no further than the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s obsession with the end of the world. But frequently, the storytelling fits a familiar template. Humanity faces some great threat: aliens, viruses, zombies, meteors, nuclear devices, megalomaniac villains in shadowy lairs. Governments are incapable of dealing with the threat. Only some hero (a retired cop, a retired soldier, a retired superhero) can save the day. He does, and we all cheer.The “Dune” saga feels different, though, and not just because Paul Atreides is not your typical popcorn-movie messiah. This world is darker; the fate of humanity is not guaranteed. The biggest threat to life is not a single clear menace, but a mysterious confluence of factors that nobody, not even the most savvy of characters, quite understands.Here apocalypse moves away from the meaning we usually ascribe to it — mass destruction, curtains on humanity and so on — and toward its older meaning. The English word “apocalypse” comes from the Greek “apokalypsis,” which means revelation. It’s a moment of unveiling, of the hidden things becoming clear. The curtain blows aside briefly and reality becomes lucid. Apocalypse is not always world-historical. Our lives are full of personal apocalypses; our nations experience them repeatedly, often in times of great distress. We learn who we are, what we stand for and what really matters in apocalyptic times. What comes next might be dystopian, or utopian. Most likely, it will be a bit of both.So perhaps it’s unsurprising that cinematic apocalypse, so visible everywhere, has been diversifying. (After all, the movie business is itself fast reaching an apocalyptic moment.) In March, the best picture Oscar went to “Oppenheimer,” a movie about how we arrive at moments of apocalypse. Soon after, “Civil War” — a movie set in a country in the midst of disintegrating — kicked up arguments about its politics. But its real insight was that habitually looking at trauma has changed the characters’ relationship to humanity itself, an apocalyptic realization if there ever was one.“Megalopolis,” with Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel, explores the difference between expedient relationships and those that endure.LionsgateWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Is ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Projected to Set Records?

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      Opening-weekend estimates have been a Hollywood fixture since the 1980s. But surveys of moviegoers can fail to capture those who infrequently visit the theater.Savvy moviegoers may have noticed that these are very uncertain times at the box office. Not only are ticket sales this summer down about 17 percent compared to last year, according to Comscore, but it seems challenging to anticipate what will hit and what will flop.The domestic opening-weekend totals for would-be tent poles “The Fall Guy” and “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” came in lower than expected, while “A Quiet Place: Day One” and last weekend’s “Twisters” far exceeded their estimates.So how do Hollywood studios and their analysts make these predictions? And what explains why they fail?Box office projections, typically derived from more general audience sentiment data known as “tracking,” have been a fixture of the industry since the 1980s. The idea that studios should know in advance how a film will perform — down to a specific dollar figure — was promoted by the Coca-Cola Company, which bought Columbia Pictures in 1982 and thought it should be run more like a conventional maker of consumer products.“They were used to certain metrics of units sold,” said Kevin Goetz, the founder and chief executive of the analytics firm Screen Engine/ASI and the author of “Audience-ology.” “They pushed the National Research Group to come up with an estimate figure for their movies, and thus began what is essentially a parlor game of predictions.”How Does Tracking Work?To get a dollar estimate for a given movie, tracking companies poll prospective audience members weeks or even months in advance. Their questions are designed to gauge three metrics: awareness, interest and choice, meaning where the film ranks among others the respondent is interested in seeing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How the ‘Furiosa’ War Rig Was Built

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      Members of the creative team explain what it took to turn the War Rig into “a beautiful chrome stage.”Chrome and polished steel have some great qualities. They look sleek, sexy and powerful. Onscreen, they really pop.But talk to the team that built the War Rig — the menacingly dazzling, steel-and-chrome 12-wheeler that carries a crucial action scene in “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” — and you’ll learn that these materials can at times be something else: a royal pain in the tailpipe.“Metal gets hot in the Australian sun,” said Guy Norris, the movie’s action designer.That became a challenge for the stunt performers, who, to execute the director George Miller’s vision, threw their bodies every which way around the tractor-trailer as it sped down a stretch of road near Hay, a rural town in southeastern Australia.“They’d get blown up or shot and they’d fall,” Norris said. “And we had restraining cables on them, so they wouldn’t hit the ground, but they’d do a full fall, hit the side of the tanker and dangle.” Even worse: “they were all bare-chested.”Shirtless skin. Sizzling metal. And surfaces so shiny, the crew’s reflection could often be seen in shots of the truck. This is how the team behind “Furiosa” created the War Rig, and how they worked with its idiosyncrasies.Anya Taylor-Joy in action on the War Rig.Jasin Boland/Warner Bros.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Watch an Ambush at the Bullet Farm in ‘Furiosa’

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      The director George Miller narrates a sequence from his film, featuring Anya Taylor-Joy and Tom Burke.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.The following contains spoilers for “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”A great action sequence may involve pyrotechnics, breakneck vehicle maneuvers and other dazzling stunts, but according to the director George Miller, it may prove hollow without a connection to, and between, the characters.He put a relationship front and center in this sequence from his latest tale in the Mad Max saga, the prequel “Furiosa.” Anya Taylor-Joy stars as the title character and Tom Burke is a driver named Praetorian Jack, with whom Furiosa builds a bond.In the scene, the pair approach the Bullet Farm to pick up munitions for a battle being waged between Immortan Joe and Dementus. But soon after they arrive and their War Rig passes through a portcullis, they are ambushed and they realize that Dementus has taken over the Bullet Farm.Taylor-Joy performs her own car stunt requiring her to spin the vehicle 180 degrees. And the sequence plays out in tense ways as both she and Praetorian Jack defend themselves. But narrating the scene, Miller defines the central purpose: “What follows is that through their actions, not their words and their promises to each other but through their actions, that they are prepared to give of themselves entirely to the other.”He continues, “In a way, it’s kind of a love story in the middle of an action scene.”Read the “Furiosa” review.Read an interview with Anya Taylor-Joy.Take a behind-the-scenes look at the War Rig from “Furiosa.”Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’: What Do Critics Say? What Do You Say?

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      The reviews all agree that the follow-up to “Fury Road” feels sadder and heavier. But is that a good thing? That’s where the disagreements start.Following up what is considered one of the greatest action movies of the last decade is no easy feat. But that was the task facing George Miller as he set out to make a prequel to his Oscar-winning 2015 blockbuster, “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The result, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” tells the origin story of the Imperator Furiosa, the breakout character who first appeared in “Fury Road” — played by Charlize Theron then and Anya Taylor-Joy now.The new film hits theaters on Friday, but critics weighed in when it premiered at Cannes last week. Comparisons with the other films in the “Mad Max” series (and especially the beloved “Fury Road”) were inevitable, and critics seem to agree that “Furiosa” feels heavier and sadder — but it’s less unanimous if that’s a positive or a negative. Read what they had to say, and let us know in the comments what you think of the movie.Manohla Dargis, The New York Times: “Scene for scene, ‘Furiosa’ is very much a complement to ‘Fury Road,’ yet the new movie never fully pops the way the earlier one does. As it turns out, it is one thing to watch a movie about warriors high-tailing it out of Dodge on the road to nowhere. It’s something else entirely to watch a woman struggle to survive a world that eats its young and everyone else, too. Miller is such a wildly inventive filmmaker that it’s been easy to forget that he keeps making movies about the end of life as we know it.” Read more.Owen Gleiberman, Variety: “What it all adds up to is a movie that can be darkly bedazzling, and that will be embraced and defended in a dozen passionate ways — but it’s one that, to me, falls very short of being a ‘Mad Max’ home run.” Read more.David Ehrlich, IndieWire: “Does ‘Furiosa’ deliver the kind of system shock that made its predecessor feel like such a violent rebuke to superhero-era Hollywood? Absolutely not — though its two bona fide set pieces both eclipse the most electric moments of ‘Fury Road,’ while also iterating on them in fantastic new ways (the much-hyped ‘Stowaway to Nowhere’ sequence is an out-of-body experience). But Miller’s decision to shift gears ultimately proves to be his prequel’s greatest strength.” Read more.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Timeline: How ‘Furiosa’ Fits into the ‘Mad Max’ Series

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      “Furiosa” is a prequel that intersects with the earlier movies in surprising ways. Here’s a chronology, plus our ideal order for watching the whole series.“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is roaring into theaters, widely advertised as a prequel to the director George Miller’s 2015 hit, “Mad Max: Fury Road.” But that was the fourth film in a series that, until now, was chronological, so where does “Furiosa” fit in? How else do these movies intersect, with the numerous cast changes and recalibrations in the 45 years since the inaugural entry? Whether you’re approaching the franchise as a novice or looking for a quick refresher, here’s how it all fits together:The Films(All the older films are available for streaming on Max or for rental on most major platforms. “Furiosa” is in theaters.)“MAD MAX” (1979) Miller began his saga with this low-budget Ozploitation hit, which is not yet in the series’s signature style of postapocalyptic action extravaganzas — it’s more indebted to the exploitation cinema standbys of revenge thriller, ’70s car movie and ’60s biker flick. A then-unknown Mel Gibson stars as “Mad” Max Rockatansky, an Australian supercop with the Main Force Patrol. The world of “Mad Max” is in disarray, primarily because of oil shortages, but it’s not yet the wasteland of the later pictures; Max lives a life of relative normalcy, with a doting wife and child, though a roving gang of biker thugs escalates into the murder of Max’s family, turning him into a lone-wolf vigilante.In the first “Mad Max,” Mel Gibson played a relatively normal guy with a family.Film Forum/MGM“MAD MAX 2” (1981) Released in 1982 in the United States as “The Road Warrior” (the earlier film hadn’t made much of an impression here), the first sequel finds Max roaming an Outback that has further descended into lawlessness. He is only looking out for himself, seeking food and petrol to keep moving, but he stumbles on a commune of survivors hiding out in an oil refinery, and helps protect them from violent marauders. This is what we think of when we think of a “Mad Max” movie: a barren landscape, Frankenstein-ed vehicles, improvised weapons, gnarly deaths and a thrilling road-race set piece that takes up most of the third act.“MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME” (1985) Max lands in Bartertown, a trading post for necessities like oil and water. Entertainment is provided by fights to the death in the Thunderdome. (“Two men enter, one man leaves.”) He later falls in with children orphaned in an airplane crash, whom he reluctantly aids. This is the only PG-13 entry in the otherwise R-rated series, and worse for it (Mad Max is essentially turned into Peter Pan). Given the budget and resources of a major studio, though, Miller experiments with the scale and scope necessary for his next entry.“MAD MAX: FURY ROAD” (2015) After a 30-year hiatus, Miller returned to the series with this blistering bruiser, which plunges Max (now played by Tom Hardy) into the Citadel, controlled by the evil warlord Immortan Joe. One of his lieutenants, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), sabotages a routine run for petrol and ammunition by smuggling out Joe’s five wives, promising to take them to the idyllic Green Place of her childhood. Max (as usual, reluctantly) assists, and when they discover the Green Place is no more, the group turns back to take down Immortan Joe and take over the Citadel.“FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA” (2024) In “Fury Road,” Furiosa told of how she was taken from the Green Place and her mother, trying to rescue her, was killed. “Furiosa” relates that story in detail, as young Furiosa (played first by Alyla Browne, then Anya Taylor-Joy) was kidnapped by the gang of the Warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) and made to watch her mother’s murder; he subsequently trades Furiosa to Immortan Joe as part of a deal for control of Gastown, and she learns how to be a road warrior so that she can exact her revenge against Dementus.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At the Cannes Film Festival, Discoveries From Andrea Arnold and Rungano Nyoni

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      Though the history-inflected “Furiosa” and “Megalopolis” were the hottest tickets, films by Andrea Arnold and Rungano Nyoni proved to be discoveries.It must say something about the anxious state of the movie world that two of the hottest tickets at this year’s Cannes Film Festival draw inspiration from ancient Rome. In George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” Chris Hemsworth zips around a wasteland like a heavy-metal charioteer, while in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” Adam Driver plays a guy named Cesar. That each movie offers a vision of a culture in decline seems too on the nose for this festival, where attendees celebrate the art amid nervous chatter about the state of the industry.This year’s festival opened Tuesday under gray skies, as if nature itself were mirroring all the gloom and doom. Yet while the opening-night movie, the unfunny French comedy “The Second Act,” was a dud, the hourlong ceremony that preceded it was unexpectedly touching. The show’s focus on women that night was instructive, and it suggested that Cannes, a festival that has long promoted the cult of the male auteur, is trying to do a better job of righting a historical gender imbalance. Mind you, the number of female filmmakers who get a chance to strut the red carpet remains low: There are only four in the main competition.Louis Garrel, left, and Vincent Lindon in “The Second Act,” from Quentin Dupieux.Chi-Fou-Mi/Arte France CinémaYet things do seem better here, and at least the festival is keen to show its support for women filmmakers. During the ceremony, which was hosted by the French actress Camille Cottin (“Call My Agent”), an emotional Juliette Binoche presented Meryl Streep with an honorary Palme d’Or, and the festival went bonkers over Greta Gerwig. She’s heading this year’s competition jury, which includes two other women filmmakers: the Turkish screenwriter Ebru Ceylan and the Lebanese director Nadine Labaki. When it came time for Gerwig to appear, the festival played a highlight reel of her work and, in giant letters beamed on an even more giant screen, announced that she had “conquered the world in three films.”It was corny, but, reader, I teared up. Among other things, the love for Streep and Gerwig was a break from the drumbeat of bad news about the American movie business. Heading into 2023, Variety had predicted an “extremely bumpy” year for Hollywood; 12 months later, it changed the diagnosis to “rocky” and a conveniently concise headline explained why. “Strikes, Box-Office Bombs and ‘Huge Leadership Vacuum’: Hollywood Says Goodbye to Worst Year in a Generation.” Even Jerry Seinfeld, in an interview with GQ, said “the movie business is over.” I’d already booked my Cannes hotel and flight, so I went anyway.That’s because while the American entertainment business is in the midst of another of its recurrent crises, this hasn’t stopped artists around the world from making movies. The festival as well as several other programs outside the official selection are presenting more than 100 new movies this year from celebrated veterans and untested directors alike, some who may soon dazzle us. In other rooms in and around the Palais — the hulking center where I spend most of my time here sitting in the dark — an estimated 14,000 industry representatives, including buyers and sellers, have some 4,000 finished movies and projects on the table in what is the world’s biggest international film market.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      George Miller and Anya Taylor-Joy on ‘Furiosa’

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      For George Miller, Anya Taylor-Joy and their crew, a series of natural disasters made for an arduous production.In the hardscrabble, postapocalyptic world of “Mad Max,” nothing is more precious than water and gasoline. But to actually make “Mad Max” movies requires an even rarer commodity: faith.Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, who fought during the difficult and chaotic making of the 2015 “Mad Max: Fury Road,” later said they wished they had placed more faith in the vision of George Miller, the director. The people who greenlit “Fury Road” didn’t fully understand it, either: Warner Bros. executives flew to Namibia, the site of the filming, and demanded that Miller cease production before the movie was complete, then crafted an alternative edit in an effort to undermine Miller’s final cut.Against all odds, Miller was able to release a one-of-a-kind, Oscar-winning masterwork. Now, he has returned with “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” a prequel to “Fury Road,” which premiered Wednesday night at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released in theaters next Wednesday.Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), a hit despite the chaotic production.Jasin Boland/Warner Bros.Did Miller feel the wind at his back while making “Furiosa,” since the reception to “Fury Road” vindicated his vision?“It definitely made it easier,” he said. “It didn’t make it effortless.”That last point may be understating things just a bit: A bevy of natural disasters, including floods and the coronavirus, pushed the production’s budget to $233 million, making it the most expensive movie ever shot in Australia. At every point in its making, Miller was faced with challenges as outsized as the fantasy world he labored to create.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More