‘Mad Max’ Director Readies for Fifth Installment in ‘Addictive’ Series 

Australian director George Miller speaks as he receives CinemaCon International Filmmaker of the Year Award at International Day Programming during CinemaCon, the official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners at Caesars Palace on April 8, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (AFP)
Australian director George Miller speaks as he receives CinemaCon International Filmmaker of the Year Award at International Day Programming during CinemaCon, the official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners at Caesars Palace on April 8, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (AFP)
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‘Mad Max’ Director Readies for Fifth Installment in ‘Addictive’ Series 

Australian director George Miller speaks as he receives CinemaCon International Filmmaker of the Year Award at International Day Programming during CinemaCon, the official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners at Caesars Palace on April 8, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (AFP)
Australian director George Miller speaks as he receives CinemaCon International Filmmaker of the Year Award at International Day Programming during CinemaCon, the official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners at Caesars Palace on April 8, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (AFP)

Australian director George Miller described his "Mad Max" series as "addictive" on Monday as he prepares to premiere the fifth film set in its high-octane, post-apocalyptic world with the highly anticipated "Furiosa."

"Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," out late May, is an origin story for the tough female warrior first played by Charlize Theron in 2015's Oscar-winning blockbuster "Mad Max: Fury Road."

The younger Furiosa will be portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy, best known to wider audiences from the hit Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit."

The movie will receive a glitzy world premiere at the Cannes film festival early next month, but Miller shared a few early details about the prequel at the CinemaCon movie theater convention in Las Vegas on Monday.

Miller said the idea stemmed from the intense preparations that went into "Fury Road," for which he sketched out detailed childhoods and journeys for each character in order to help actors and crew navigate the world.

"We had to understand everything about what we see on the screen -- not only the backstory of every character, but every prop, every vehicle, every gesture," said Miller.

When "Fury Road" was a hit, grossing $380 million and winning six Oscars, Miller realized that the movie's backstory was "a rich story to tell" in its own right.

In the new plot, young Furiosa has been kidnapped from her home, and gets caught up in a battle between Immortan Joe -- the villain of "Fury Road" -- and his rival Dementus, played by Chris Hemsworth, of "Thor" fame.

It is the latest twist in a long road for a franchise that began with 1979's "Mad Max" starring a young, leather-clad Mel Gibson, who does battle with vicious biker gangs.

Miller was working as a medical doctor in his native Australia at the time, and the young cinephile was deeply affected by the many road accident victims he encountered in the hospital.

With an ultra-low budget, Miller could not afford to shoot in major cities, and was forced to improvise a deserted, post-societal collapse landscape.

"That was a really lucky thing, but because accidentally, the film -- which otherwise would have been present-day, naturalistic -- turned out to be more allegorical, unwittingly," recalled Miller, now 79.

"And that's sort of what led to 'Mad Max,' and that's why we're still doing them. Because they're very addictive."

'Uniquely familiar'

The initial movie grossed $100 million. Its global success led to "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" in 1981 and "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" in 1985.

The fast-paced, violent films drew on a visual language that audiences around the world could follow without needing much in the way of subtitles or dubbing.

"In Japan, 'Mad Max' was regarded as some sort of samurai. The French called it a 'Western on wheels.' In Scandinavia, he was a Viking," said Miller.

A fourth installment was a long time coming, as Miller tried his hand at wildly diverse films, including family movies like "Babe" and "Happy Feet."

"Fury Road" eventually arrived in 2015. The character of Max, now played by Tom Hardy, was relegated to second fiddle by Theron's tough-as-nails Furiosa.

With strong feminist themes, jaw-dropping effects and meticulously choreographed action sequences, it premiered at the prestigious Cannes festival and went on to earn 10 Oscar nominations, including for best picture and best director.

"Furiosa," Miller told the CinemaCon audience, "is different."

"You don't want a film to be a repetition of what you've just done... it has to be 'uniquely familiar,' as I like to say."



Movie Review: A Weird ‘Superman’ Is Better than a Boring One

 Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Movie Review: A Weird ‘Superman’ Is Better than a Boring One

 Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a ... a purple and orange shape-shifting chemical compound?

Writer-director James Gunn’s “Superman” was always going to be a strange chemistry of filmmaker and material. Gunn, the mind behind “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Suicide Squad,” has reliably drifted toward a B-movie superhero realm populated (usually over-populated) with the lesser-known freaks, oddities and grotesquerie of back-issue comics.

But you don’t get more mainstream than Superman. And let’s face it, unless Christopher Reeve is in the suit, the rock-jawed Man of Steel can be a bit of a bore. Much of the fun and frustration of Gunn’s movie is seeing how he stretches and strains to make Superman, you know, interesting.

In the latest revamp for the archetypal superhero, Gunn does a lot to give Superman (played with an easy charm by David Corenswet) a lift. He scraps the origin story. He gives Superman a dog. And he ropes in not just expected regulars like Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) but some less conventional choices — none more so than that colorful jumble of elements, Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan).

Metamorpho, a melancholy, mutilated man whose powers were born out of tragedy, is just one of many side shows in “Superman.” But he’s the most representative of what Gunn is going for. Gunn might favor a traditional-looking hero at the center, like Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord in “Guardians of the Galaxy.” And Corenswet, complete with hair curl, looks the part, too. But Gunn’s heart is with the weirdos who soldier on.

The heavy lift of “Superman” is making the case that the perfect superhuman being with “S” on his chest is strange, too. He’s a do-gooder at a time when no one does good anymore.

Not everything works in “Superman.” For those who like their Superman classically drawn, Gunn’s film will probably seem too irreverent and messy. But for anyone who found Zack Snyder’s previous administration painfully ponderous, this “Superman,” at least, has a pulse.

It would be hard to find a more drastic 180 in franchise stewardship. Where Snyder’s films were super-serious mythical clashes of colossuses, Gunn’s “Superman” is lightly earthbound, quirky and sentimental. When this Superman flies, he even keeps his arms back, like an Olympic skeleton rider.

We begin not on Krypton or Kansas but in Antarctica, near the Fortress of Solitude. The opening titles set-up the medias res beginning. Three centuries ago, metahumans first appeared on Earth. Three minutes ago, Superman lost a battle for the first time. Lying bloodied in the snow, he whistles and his faithful super dog, Krypto, comes running.

Like some of Gunn’s other novelty gags (I’m looking at you Groot), Krypto is both a highlight and overused gag throughout. Superman is in the midst of a battle by proxy with Luthor. From atop his Luthor Corp. skyscraper headquarters, Luther gives instructions to a team sitting before computer screens while, on a headset, barking out coded battle directions to drone-assisted henchmen. “13-B!” he shouts, like a Bingo caller.

Whether this is an ideal localizing of main characters in conflict is a debate that recedes a bit when, back in Metropolis, Clark Kent returns to the Daily Planet. There’s Wendell Pierce as the editor-in-chief, Perry White, and Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen. But the character of real interest here is, of course, Lois.

She and Kent are already an item in “Superman.” When alone, Lois chides him over the journalistic ethics of interviewing himself after some daring do, and questions his flying into countries without their leaders’ approval. Brosnahan slides so comfortably into the role that I wonder if “Superman” ought to have been “Lois,” instead. Her scenes with Corenswet are the best in the film, and the movie loses its snap when she’s not around.

That’s unfortunately for a substantial amount of time. Luthor traps Superman in a pocket universe (enter Metamorpho, among others) and the eccentric members of the Justice Gang — Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern, Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl — are called upon to lend a hand. They come begrudgingly. But if there’s anyone else that comes close to stealing the movie, it’s Gathegi, who meets increasingly absurd cataclysm with wry deadpan.

The fate of the world, naturally, again turns iffy. There’s a rift in the universe, not to mention some vaguely defined trouble in Boravia and Jarhanpur. In such scenes, Gunn's juggling act is especially uneasy and you can feel the movie lurching from one thing to another. Usually, that's Krypto's cue to fly back into the movie and run amok.

Gunn, who now presides over DC Studios with producer Peter Safran, is better with internal strife than he is international politics. Superman is often called “the Kryptonian” or “the alien" by humans, and Gunn leans into his outsider status. Not for the first time, Superman’s opponents try to paint him as an untrustworthy foreigner. With a modicum of timeliness, “Superman” is an immigrant story.

Mileage will inevitably vary when it comes to Gunn’s idiosyncratic touch. He can be outlandish and sweet, often at once. In a conversation between metahumans, he will insert a donut into the scene for no real reason, and cut from a body falling through the air to an Alka-Seltzer tablet dropping into a glass. Some might call such moments glib, a not-unfair label for Gunn. But I’d say they make this pleasantly imperfect “Superman” something quite rare in the assembly line-style of superhero moviemaking today: human.