Cannes Daily: Audiences Mad for 'Furiosa'
Did a George Miller-Denis Villeneuve Oscar showdown just begin? Plus: the Screen International Jury Grid begins today!
Welcome to our The Ankler x Screen International Cannes daily. Gregg Kilday and Claire Atkinson are on the ground at the fest for The Ankler, where their reporting is shared with the best of Screen’s pre-eminent coverage from its newsroom at The Majestic.
The setting is a burnt-orange desert landscape. The young protagonist, out to avenge the death of a parent, is caught between warring clans before growing into a fearsome warrior. The film culminates in a mano-a-mano duel to the death. Sound familiar? No, I’m not talking about Dune: Part Two. I’m talking about George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, his new prequel to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which premiered Wednesday night at the Cannes Film Festival. But the two films — Dune is the more contemplative, Furiosa, the more bone-rattling — could find themselves squaring off come Oscar time.
Warner Bros.’ Furiosa, in which Anya Taylor-Joy plays a younger version of the bad-ass Furiosa (the character Charlize Theron played in the previous film), met with a predictably rapturous reception and a standing ovation that was variously clocked at seven-to-eight minutes long.
Looking like a modern-day Grace Kelly — her blonde hair pulled back into an elegant chignon — Taylor-Joy embraced Miller, who was also flanked by the movie’s other star, Chris Hemsworth. Miller’s fellow Aussie director Baz Luhrmann rushed up to offer his congratulations.
While there were a few holdouts among major critics who carped that the new movie’s non-stop action isn’t quite up to the impossible standards set by its predecessor, there were still plenty of near-raves. Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri called it “a slow-burn epic,” while the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis praised Miller as “a wildly inventive myth-maker.”
But now, here’s where it gets interesting — at least in terms of Furiosa’s awards potential.
In 2015, Fury Road was nominated for 10 Oscars, including best picture and best director, and won six of them — film editing, production design, costume design, make-up and hairstyling, sound mixing and sound editing.
But this year, if Furiosa hopes to rack up a similar score, it will have to do so by facing off against another Warner’s release, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two. That movie will be following in the wake of Villeneuve’s 2021 Dune, which was also nominated for 10 Oscars, including best picture, and won six — cinematography, music, film editing, production design, sound and visual effects.
So, at least in the technical categories, Furiosa and Dune: Part Two could find themselves battling it out, head to head, which in turn could mean quite a juggling act for Warners if it’s to fully support the two contenders — and that’s even before a couple of other Warner releases that could become Oscar players are unveiled. There’s Kevin Costner’s return to the Western in Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1, which will make its Cannes debut on Sunday night, and Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie a Deux, set for release Oct. 4.
So let the battle begin.
From our Partners at Screen International
First a quick snapshot from our Claire Atkinson outside the Majestic, home of the Screen newsroom during Cannes.
News
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Deal News
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Reviews
Furiosa: ‘High-Octane Revenge Thriller’
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Features
The Making of ‘a Dark Fairy Tale’
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Today’s Screen Jury at Cannes
The long-running Screen International Jury Grid is a critical ranking of competition films in Cannes, according to an assembled jury of at least 10 international film critics, including Screen's reviewers. During the course of the festival, Screen keeps a closely-followed scorecard in which 11 international critics rate the competition films on a scale of one to four stars. The grid kicks off today as the first judgments come in, with Agathe Riedinger’s Wild Diamond receiving an average score of 2.1.