Furiosa isn’t just a movie. It’s a “saga.”

The film — a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the younger version of the character previously played by Charlize Theron — is ready to go into production. At a press conference over the weekend, director George Miller, producers, and co-star Chris Hemsworth revealed that the film is about to start production  in Australia.

Unlike the first three Mad Max films, Fury Road was shot in Australia. In that case, the production originally planned to film in Broken Hill, New South Wales, but unprecedented rainfall covered their intended shooting location with flowers and greenery. Not exactly what you needed for a movie set in a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland. As a result, the entire production had to relocate to South Africa.

This time, Miller and his team are returning to their Australian roots. While they were cagey about the details of Furiosa’s plot, Miller did reveal that the film is a “big epic movie” that’s different from Fury Road in one key respect.  “As it turns out, it’s got a lot of different scenes,” Miller explained at the press conference. “Fury Road happened over three days and two nights. This is a saga. It happens over many years.”

Furiosa is scheduled to open in theaters on June 23, 2023. If the film hits its scheduled release date, it will open about eight years after Mad Max: Fury Road. That’s not the smallest gap between sequels, but it’s a lot better than the time it took to make Fury Road. Its predecessor, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, came out in 1985. We’re just glad we don’t have to wait until 2045 to see Furiosa.

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