George Miller’s New Movie Starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba Begins Filming

Ahead of his return to The Wasteland with the Mad Max spin-off movie, director George Miller is in the midst of his new film Three Thousand Years of Longing with production already 1/3 of the way finished. Deadline brings word of the start in production which is set up in Sydney, Australia with a planned break between Christmas and the first part of 2021. The new film is set to star Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton and will mark Miller’s first directorial effort since Mad Max: Fury Road, and his first pit stop before gassing up for the Furiosa prequel film.

Miller has assembled a solid group behind the camera with him including many of his Mad Max: Fury Road cohorts including: cinematographer John Seale, editor (and Miller’s wife) Margaret Sixel*, hair and makeup designer Lesley Vanderwalt*, set decorator Lisa Thompson*, casting director Nikki Barrett, stunt co-ordinator Guy Norris, make-up effects artist Sheldon Wade, and composer Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL. From this crew, Sixel, Vanderwalt, and Thompson all won Academy Awards for their work on Mad Max: Fury Road.

As previously reported by The Illuminerdi, the film follows a “lonely British woman, who has decided to go on a vacation to Istanbul. While there, she accidentally finds a bottle that contains a wish-granting Djinn – giving her the chance to change her life with three wishes. George Miller is set to write and direct the upcoming film.”

The only confirmed cast members for the new film are Elba and Swinton, with the laterseemingly taking on the “lonely British woman” role and Elba playing the “wish-granting Djinn,” this isn’t confirmed but seems likely at this point. Miller previously said that he cast the two in the parts after meeting them on separate occasions, saying that the film will offer them both something new that they haven’t done in their careers. The director also spoke about the mysterious title and story telling Deadline:

“I guess I’m hardwired to story in some way, and for me what happens is, stories seed in your head and they rattle around. It becomes rather Darwinian, survival of the fittest: the ones that have the most comprehensive promise are the ones that survive. This story I have been working on and thinking about for at least 15 years. There would always be several of these stories in my mind and it’s interesting, the ones that tend to fall away and why they fall away. The ones that are more insistent are usually so because they tick a lot of boxes and organically do a lot of things.”

No official release date for Three Thousand Years of Longing x