Three Thousand Years Of Longing Footage Reveals First Look At George Miller's New Movie

Folks, this is very much not a drill. Acclaimed director George Miller's next feature might not have been three thousand years in the making, but it sure feels like it. Movie fans have been anxiously awaiting our first look at "Three Thousand Years of Longing," a sweeping epic intriguingly billed as a love story that "involves a genie." We've all been looking forward to it ever since we first heard about this project back in 2018, which represented the director's follow-up to his action masterpiece "Mad Max: Fury Road." He's already gearing up to begin filming for the "Fury Road" prequel "Furiosa" starring Anya Taylor-Joy as a young Furiosa, but first comes the film's debut at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival.

Ahead of its premiere, however, MGM has seen fit to bless us with a rapid-fire first look at the upcoming film. Yes, it's essentially a teaser for the trailer, which is set to arrive this Friday, May 20. But is anyone honestly going to complain about our long-awaited first look at "Three Thousand Years of Longing"? Couldn't be me! You can check out the brief but tantalizing footage below!

Maybe it's the hype talking, but I'd go so far as to say that nobody in the business can make trailer footage look quite as good as a George Miller movie does. "Mad Max: Fury Road" all but melted our faces off in the lead-up to its 2015 release with an onslaught of trailers, each one better than the last. Today, "Three Thousand Years of Longing" doesn't swerve from that proud tradition as we've finally received our first official look at the film that stars Idris Elba, Tilda Swinton, and more. The tease was first posted on Twitter by the official production social media account, promising a full trailer to come this Friday. Honestly, just based on the quick-cutting footage on display here, I'm not entirely sure we're prepared for a full 2 minutes of the "mad genius" (as the teaser cheekily describes it) of George Miller.

Idris Elba as a genie getting violently sucked back into his container, absolutely stunning fight sequences with evocative skies overhead (think the aesthetics of "300" mixed with the glorious visuals of "Fury Road"), vibrant colors stuffed into every frame of courtly intrigue, the briefest of looks at a wide-ranging story that cuts through large swaths of time, and no shortage of compelling (and disturbing!) imagery that has successfully left us wanting — nay, needing — more.

Based on the short story "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" by A.S. Byatt, the R-rated "Three Thousand Years of Longing" is written and directed by Miller and will come to theaters on August 31, 2022. Check out the official synopsis below. And watch out for the full trailer, which is set to arrive this Friday.

Dr Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is an academic – content with life and a creature of reason. While in Istanbul attending a conference, she happens to encounter a Djinn (Idris 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.