14 DAY TRIAL // “Mad Max: Fury Road” revived George Miller’s “Mad Max” franchise and is, as of the time of writing, one of the best reviewed action movies of the year. Commercially speaking though, it wasn’t exactly a smashing hit.
“Fury Road” made almost $400 million (€365 million) worldwide on a budget of $150 million (€137 million): it’s not peanuts, but it’s probably not the kind of box office gross a major studio like Warner Bros. expected. Still, a sequel has been greenlit, with a release date yet to be announced.
Before “Fury Road” came out, Tom Hardy, who took over from Mel Gibson as Max, told the media that his contract with Warners was for 3 movies in the series, if the first one performed well. So when word got out of “Mad Max: The Wasteland” being in the pipeline, the fans of the franchise were thrilled.
The bad news is that, if they expected Charlize Theron to return as Furiosa as well, it’s not happening. Theron and Hardy had an infamously difficult working relationship on set but their chemistry on-camera was excellent.
That and the solid writing made Furiosa the “real” star of the movie for non-fans, i.e. those people who went into “Fury Road” not knowing that Max wasn’t the central character in the original trilogy either.
USA Today caught up with Theron on the press tour for “Dark Places” and asked her if she would return for “The Wasteland.” Her answer is bound to break a few hearts: “What’s Wasteland? This is all news to me. I have not heard anything like that.”
So either she’s playing coy until she knows she’s back for a fact, or she’s really done with Furiosa. For what it’s worth, she still appears as attached to the project on IMDB.