Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Rating Confirmed

The Mad Max: Fury Road sequel will be in theaters in May.

By Russ Burlingame

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association, confirming most people's assumptions about the upcoming Fury Road prequel. The movie, which will be in theaters a month from today, was "rated R for sequences of strong violence, and grisly images," according to the ratings organization's website. That puts it in line with Mad Max: Fury Road, which cleared over $380 million back in 2015 in spite of the R-rating and a franchise which, at that point, was largely forgotten by casual viewers. This time around, Furiosa has big shoes to fill: Fury Road was a massive critical and commercial hit, and fans have been waiting almost a decade to see the next installment.

Not long after Mad Max: Fury Road hit theaters, filmmaker George Miller was pressed for a follow-up. The box office phenomenon had landed some Academy Award nominations in big categories -- a rarity for a tentpole blockbuster -- and it was clear that the movie's breakout star was Furiosa, the antiheroine played by Charlie Theron. When it came time to cast a prequel movie, Miller tapped New Mutants star Anya Taylor-Joy to play the role.

"It definitely would have been Charlize [had Furiosa been filmed before Fury Road]," Miller told Collider. "I began thinking, 'Oh, maybe we could do de-aging.' Then I watched really masterful filmmakers like Ang Lee and Martin Scorsese, doing Gemini Man and The Irishman, and I saw that it hadn't been licked. All you'd be watching is, 'Look how well the technology works?' It would not have been persuasive."

In that same interview, he praised Taylor-Joy, saying that like Theron, she was an incredibly compelling actor who could bring some of her personal energy to the part.

"There's an innately resolute quality in [Taylor-Joy]," Miller said. "She's a very determined and rigorous person. She has a mystique about her. And she'd been trained young as a ballet dancer. Charlize trained young as a ballet dancer. There's a precision to them that was needed."

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In Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, as the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland they come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is set to hit theaters on May 24th.

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