Furiosa creates waves at Cannes

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga rolled into the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, returning George Miller’s dystopia-on-wheels to the French Riviera festival. The Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy-starrer received a thunderous response at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. The audience gave the high-octane action film a six-minute standing ovation!

Taylor-Joy, with her first film in Cannes, brought classical movie-star glamour to one of the most anticipated premieres of the festival. Wearing a cream-coloured custom Dior gown, Taylor-Joy playfully posed for photographers while walking into the Palais des Festivals and offering mock salutes to her director.

The latest Mad Max film, starring Chris Hemsworth and Taylor-Joy as a young Furiosa, premiered in Cannes almost exactly nine years after Mad Max: Fury Road debuted at the French festival. Miller, who has served on the Cannes jury several times, also premiered his Three Thousand Years of Longing in 2022.

For the 28-year-old Taylor-Joy, Furiosa was a full circle moment. The first time she came to the festival was to receive a Chopard trophy as an emerging actor in 2017. It was presented by the original Furiosa, Charlize Theron, the star of Fury Road.

While this year’s Cannes boasts many prominent upcoming premieres, including Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness, with Emma Stone, the Furiosa debut was easily the biggest megawatt Hollywood event of the festival. Among the attendees were jury head Greta Gerwig, Eva Green, Naomi Campbell and Baz Luhrmann. — AP