Does Mad Max appear in Furiosa?
This is the first film in the franchise in which Max Rockatansky does not have a central role.
**WARNING - Includes spoilers for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga**
Up until this point, every film in George Miller's Max Max series – from the 1979 original to 2015's hugely acclaimed Fury Road – has focused on the post-apocalyptic adventures of Max Rockatansky, played first by Mel Gibson and then by Tom Hardy.
But in the latest film in the franchise – which has just arrived in UK cinemas – Max is not the subject. The movie instead tells the backstory of Imperator Furiosa, a key character who was memorably introduced in Fury Road.
Unfolding over several years in the lead-up to the previous film, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga sees Anya Taylor-Joy take on the role previously made famous by Charlize Theron – and she's joined in the cast by a couple of familiar names in the shape of Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke.
But what about Max himself – does he appear in the new film, even fleetingly? Read on for everything you need to know.
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Does Mad Max appear in Furiosa?
Yes – he does, but it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance.
The cameo comes not long after the film's centrepiece action sequence in the section titled Stowaway to Nowhere, which sees Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) and her ally Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke) locked in a violent road battle with assailants in the employ of antagonist Warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth).
Jack is killed in the fighting, but Furiosa manages an audacious escape by forcefully cutting off her arm and making her way back to the Citadel, where she can begin planning her revenge.
As she treks through the desert, we briefly cut to a figure who is watching over her from afar, and although it is never made explicitly clear who this is, the V8 Interceptor next to him pretty much gives the game away that it's none other than Max himself (played by Tom Hardy's Fury Road stunt double Jacob Tomuri).
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There are no other appearances from Max in the film itself, although he can be seen in the end credits sequence – which includes snippets of several familiar scenes from Fury Road featuring Hardy.
Speaking about the decision to include the cameo, Miller told Entertainment Weekly: "In doing what we did in the preparation of Mad Max: Fury Road, we also wrote what happened to Max in the year before we encounter him in [that film].
"And as we get towards the end of this movie, the chronology... Basically, we had to see that Mad Max was lurking around somewhere, because we do know what happened."
Meanwhile, on the decision to cast Tomuri as Max, he explained to ScreenRant: "It was Jacob Tomuri, who was Tom Hardy's double. He also did some other stunts. He's a New Zealand stuntman, and he was doing some other stunts on the film, and I thought, 'Who better?'"
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is now showing in cinemas.
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