Charlize Theron May Go From Furiosa to Fast 8 Villain

All it took was a little axle grease mascara, a claw for an arm the ability to plausibly beat the snot out of Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road to make Charlize Theron’s Furiosa one of the most iconic characters of the past few years. Theron’s Furiosa immediately warrants mention with other deathless big screen heroines like Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor in The Terminator and T2 and Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Alien and Aliens. So it’s not surprising that Variety’s reporting Universal has reached out to Theron to play a villain in Fast 8, the next installment of their Fast & Furious franchise.

Mainstays Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson and Jaston Statham are likely returning, and Straight Outta Compton director F. Gary Gray is going to helm. Variety reports that Theron’s role in The Gray Man for Sony was specifically rewritten from a male character to a female, and this delay will make it possible for her to star in Fast 8, which is expected to start production next spring.

Theron is going to add even more swagger to a film franchise that has plenty of it. If she’s a fraction as bad ass as she was as Furiosa, we feel bad for Diesel.

Featured image: Charlize Theron as Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. Courtesy Warner Bros.