What a day, what a lovely day! First look at ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’

Not, as the name might infer, a reference to a 90-minute film documenting Max Verstappen’s angry outbursts over team radio this season, but another chance to ride eternal, shiny and chrome: a new Mad Max film is coming. What a day, what a lovely day!

Though it’s a day that’s long been in the making. Fury Road director George Miller told TopGear.com way back in 2015 that two more Mad Max films were in the pipeline.

Of the two scripts he ended up writing – largely thanks to the delays and time spent in getting Fury Road to the screen – it appears this next instalment documents the rise of ‘Furiosa’, played in the original movie by Charlize Theron.

Here, Anya Taylor-Joy will take up the mantle – starring alongside Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth – and we’re told the film will follow her journey as she is “snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus”.

From there, they ‘sweep’ through the wasteland and come across “the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe”, as Dementus and Joe fight each other and Furiosa tries to get back home and, and… look, it’ll likely be a couple of hours of watching dystopian machines take big lumps out of each other.

And if Miller’s feelings about the Mad Max world continue to hold, it’ll be quite spectacular. “I never wanted to make another Mad Max movie,” he told TG back in 2015. “The story kept popping into my mind and I kept on pushing it away.

“But in this case, it was a long flight across the Pacific one night from Los Angeles to Sydney, around 14 hours. I was in this half-awake state, and suddenly I was dreaming, and the story played out. It played out and kept playing.”

And it’ll keep playing next year - Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is scheduled to hit cinemas on 24 May 2024. One ticket to Valhalla, please…

Watch the trailer here