While she was terrific in her first role in 2015’s The Witch and her recurring role on Peaky Blinders, Anya Taylor-Joy’s first big hit came in the form of the unexpected hit The Queen’s Gambit. Playing the lead role as Beth Harmon, entertainment outlets jumped on coverage of the series as they always do when something worth watching comes along on the streaming platform.
Since then, she’s been in Last Night in Soho, The Northman, and The Menu, being very good in each. Taylor-Joy also lent her voice to the iconic Princess Peach in The Super Mario Bros, which made over $1.3 billion worldwide. The Floridian-born, Argentine-raised British actress is a rising star, and now she has the lead role in a movie set to be colossal when it arrives next year.
Taking on the Mad Max franchise
Mad Max rose to fame as a remarkably well-made post-apocalyptic movie on a very low budget. The first was made in Australia on a mere $200,000, going on to make $99.75 million worldwide. The 1980 flick starring Mel Gibson was followed by sequels in 1982 and 1985, which got bigger budgets but didn’t do quite as well. Still, Mad Max became a cult classic and the prime example of great action moviemaking on a budget.
When George Miller brought back the series in 2015, he got a $150 million budget and flew to the top of the box office, bringing back some $370 million worldwide. Now, Mad Max: Fury Road is hailed as one of the greatest action flicks of all time. It still has enormous pulling power and is already an icon of the action genre.
Mad Max even has its own online casino creation. When it comes to iGaming, casino reviews put a great emphasis on games. One of the reasons why CASINOenquirer gave one of its sites a whopping 4.91/5.00 is its selection of top-class games. On its Top Slots bar, you’ll find the still very popular Mad Max: Fury Road slot alongside the Nightmare on Elm Street game. It’s a big draw by name alone because it’s associated with quality, which bodes very well for Taylor-Joy’s entry.
Furiosa picking up speed
For contemporary entertainment-seekers, Fury Road is the Mad Max headline, and many consider it the best film in the series to date. Now, Anya Taylor-Joy gets to jump on at what would seem to be the peak of Mad Max and at a time when its creator is clearly being backed well by studios. Mad Max is also one of the few big cinematic series right now that’s on the rise rather than falling off a cliff due to weak writing.
Naturally, the quality of Furiosa will determine its box-office return and if this proves to be Taylor-Joy’s break into the big leagues, even though the foundations are certainly there. The preview images for the movie look as crazy as the series needs; the lead certainly looks the part, and co-star Chris Hemsworth (Thor in the MCU) even called filming “by far the best experience of [his] career.”
Suppose Furiosa lands as well as Fury Road did. In that case, it’ll immortalize Taylor-Joy as the incarnation of this superb character, opening up droves of leading role opportunities in big-budget films for her. We just have to wait for May 24 next year to see if the writing holds up.
