Furiosa's Place In The Mad Max Timeline Explained By Director George Miller

"Mad Max" franchise steward George Miller has opened up about the upcoming "Furiosa" flick's place in the larger timeline.

Somehow, we're lucky enough to get another film in the "Mad Max" franchise. Back in the late '70s, madcap Australian filmmaker George Miller debuted "Mad Max" to critical acclaim. The post-apocalyptic action film was a major success and spawned a beloved trilogy, which wrapped up with 1985's chaotic "Beyond Thunderdome." It wasn't until 2015 that the franchise returned to the silver screen with "Fury Road," with Tom Hardy in the titular role and Charlize Theron as his newly introduced companion, Furiosa.

With "Furiosa," the "Mad Max" franchise is directly venturing away from its principal character, and Miller is excited to explore different corners of his hellish world. While speaking at the CCXP23 panel to promote the film, Miller revealed where exactly the prequel lies in the "Mad Max" timeline. "This story happens 15 years directly before 'Mad Max: Fury Road,' and it runs straight into it," the director confirmed. In the first look at the film, audiences see a significantly younger Furiosa embarking on the adventure that's directly tied to her experiences in "Fury Road."

It's unclear when exactly "Fury Road" takes place in the "Mad Max" timeline, seeing as the 2015 film is largely divorced from the original trilogy. However, setting "Furiosa" over a decade before "Fury Road" suggests that Max would be in his 20s while Furiosa is doing her solo quest.

The first trailer for "Furiosa" — which boasts the subtitle "A Mad Max Saga" — is slim on concrete plot details, but it does confirm that audiences will see Anya Taylor-Joy's character searching for her family. In "Fury Road," we saw Charlize Theron's hardened, older Furiosa bring Max (Hardy) along for a chaotic journey through the desert-like wasteland, continuing her journey to find those closest to her. The first look at "Furiosa" confirms that the prequel is set 45 years after the initial societal collapse, which means that Taylor-Joy's young Furiosa likely has little to no knowledge of a pre-apocalyptic world.

Furiosa immediately emerged as a fan-favorite when "Fury Road" introduced the badass character. Some fans even argue that "Fury Road" is Furiosa's film, with Max simply tagging along for the ride. Still, "Furiosa" is set in the larger "Mad Max" universe and franchise creator George Miller doesn't want to shy away from that. At the CCXP23 panel, Miller teased that Max would be involved in "Furiosa," kind of. "Max is lurking around somewhere in this story, but it's really the story of Furiosa and how she got to be," Miller said, hinting at the iconic character's involvement. 

It remains to be seen if we actually see a younger Max in the story, but interestingly, Miller wanted to explicitly acknowledge that the Road Warrior is doing his own thing. Based purely on the trailer, it looks like "Furiosa" will continue to touch upon the same visual cues and themes that "Fury Road" tackled, with Miller teasing, "A lot of the film will be familiar, and a lot of it's new, which we haven't seen before."

"Furiosa" crashes into theaters on May 24, 2024.