George Miller. Idris Elba. Tilda ruddy Swinton. The combination of that trio is enough to get anyone anticipating Three Thousand Years Of Longing, the new film from the crazed brain that last brought us Mad Max: Fury Road. Check out the first teaser.
Inspired by AS Byatt's The Djinn In The Nightingale’s Eye, Longing follows Dr Alithea Binnie (Swinton) an academic who is content with life and a creature of reason. While in Istanbul attending a conference, she happens to encounter a Djinn (Elba) who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom.
This presents two problems: First, she doubts that he is real and second, because she is a scholar of story and mythology, she knows all the cautionary tales of wishes gone wrong. The Djinn pleads his case by telling her fantastical stories of his past. Eventually she is beguiled and makes a wish that surprises them both...
And if the sight of Elba in wee elven ears makes you eager for more, the full trailer lands on Friday. For more from the director on this latest, Cannes-bound effort, head to Deadline.
In other Miller news – and it feels really good to be talking about the Good Doctor's filmmaking in plural – he's also enthused about his next film, the Fury Road prequel Furiosa, which sees Anya Taylor-Joy picking up the title role from Charlize Theron for a film exploring the origins of the character and how she went from the Green Place to the brutality of the Citadel.
"All I can say about my excitement about doing it is that it’s definitely exciting because even though it’s certainly of that world of Fury Road, it’s also got a lot of the differences we’ve been talking about. Again, it’s uniquely familiar. And probably the biggest difference is the timespan. Fury Road happened over three days and two nights and this one happens over 15 years. So, it’s a saga.,” Miller says. Tom Burke and Chris Hemsworth also star.
Thanks to pesky production delays, the film has been pushed back to May 2024, but that's not dialing down our anticipation one iota.