George Miller's Furiosa — a postapocalyptic prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road — is eyeing a 2024 Cannes Film Festival premiere. Mad Max: Fury Road premiered at Cannes in 2015, grossed $374 million worldwide, and won 6 Oscars out of 10 nominations.

Miller directs Furiosa from a screenplay that he co-wrote with Nico Lathouris. It stars Anya Taylor-Joy as a younger version of the titular character played by Charlize Theron so memorably in Mad Max: Fury Road. Chris Hemsworth plays Immortan Joe, the main antagonist of Mad Max: Fury Road, played in that movie by the late Hugh Keays-Byrne. Also starring in Furiosa are Tom Burke as Dementus, Nathan Jones as Rictus Erectus, Angus Sampson as the Organic Mechanic, Daniel Webber as War Boy, Quaden Bayles, and Lachy Hulme.

Charlize Theron Says That Not Being Able to Reprise Her Role as Furiosa Was a “Tough Pill to Swallow”

Variety reports: “According to an insider, the tentative plan is for Warner Bros. to world premiere Furiosa at Cannes just as it did Fury Road nine years ago. The studio said any suggestion that Furiosa would roll out at Cannes was purely a rumor. Any premiere plan for the movie depends on clearing the actors’ schedules to do the promotion, and those talks can’t happen until the SAG-AFTRA strike is resolved.”

“We kept an extraordinary memory of the world premiere of Fury Road at Cannes,” the festival’s chief Thierry Fremaux told Variety. “It would be wonderful to welcome them again with Furiosa, especially since George Miller was a marvelous jury president in 2016. I know he’s working on the film and I hope it will be at Cannes.”

According to Variety, “Miller earned positive reviews at Cannes 2022 for Three Thousand Years of Longing, but nothing like the unanimous acclaim that greeted Fury Road in 2015. Many festival-goers agreed at the time that had Fury Road premiered in competition it would’ve been a contender for major prizes such as the Palme d’Or.”

Theron — who made Furiosa a pop-culture sensation after her performance in Mad Max: Fury Road — shared her thoughts with The Hollywood Reporter in 2020 about not being cast in Furiosa. She said:

“It’s a tough one to swallow. Listen, I fully respect George, if not more so in the aftermath of making Fury Road with him. He’s a master, and I wish him nothing but the best. Yeah, it’s a little heartbreaking, for sure. I really love that character, and I’m so grateful that I had a small part in creating her. She will forever be someone I think of and reflect on fondly. Obviously, I would love to see that story continue, and if he feels like he has to go about it this way, then I trust him in that manner. We get so hung up on the smaller details that we forget the thing that we emotionally tap into has nothing to do with that minute thing that we’re focusing on.”