Charlize Theron Says Mad Max Fury Road Begins Shooting This Summer

It’s a little known fact that Charlize Theron was supposed to play Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, the scientist leaning on her faith, in Sir Ridley Scott’s Prometheus but had to bow out due to prior commitments to shoot George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. But when that production went into unfortunate delays, Theron accepted a smaller role in Scott’s epic. With Prometheus now heading to theaters, Theron’s circling back to the Mad Max universe for a film that she claims is shooting this summer.

Theron spoke with the UK Press Association while promoting Snow White and the Huntsman and claimed that Miller’s anticipated return to the Max story will be neither a prequel nor a sequel, but a re-imagining of sorts.
Like with Snow White And The Huntsman, there is so much potential to re-imagine that world. It's such an interesting world and how much it still resonates today after 20 years or whatever it's been. We're going back to that world, but this is not a prequel or sequel or anything like that.

Technically, it could pick up where Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome left off in 1985, as Miller has recast Mel Gibson’s Mad Max role with Tom Hardy. Theron says she’ll be playing an original character in the film. The ensemble also includes Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz, and Adelaide Clemens. Between the Snow White reboot and all of the discussions swirling around Prometheus and its identity as either an Alien prequel or a standalone film, you’d think Theron would want to stay far away from exercises such as this, where she has to explain to nerds like us how these chapters synch up in our glorious canon. For now, Mad Max Fury Road begins filming in July, perhaps for a 2013 release date. Stay tuned.