First we had Wicked, the retelling of the Wizard of Oz from the Witches point of view, now comes Maleficent the retelling of the 1959 Disney Classic Sleeping Beauty. The story of this new film will focus on how Maleficent’s heart became so hardened and why she did what she did to little Princess Aurora.

Angelina Jolie is to play the lead of Maleficent while Elle Fanning will be playing the role of Sleeping Beauty. The film was originally going to be directed by Tim Burton but he has since pulled out leaving Robert Stromberg (“Alice in Wonderland”, “Avatar”) at the helm. Behind-the-scenes talent includes Academy Award®–winning cinematographer Dean Semler (“Dances with Wolves,” “In the Land of Blood and Honey”), production designer Gary Freeman (“Saving Private Ryan,” “The Bourne Supremacy”), two-time Oscar® nominated costume designer Anna B. Sheppard (“Schindler’s List,” “The Pianist”) and seven-time Academy Award–winning makeup artist Rick Baker (“Planet of the Apes,” “Men in Black”).

In this first release picture of Jolie in the role we cannot see the trademark green skin but maybe that will happen along the journey of the film. (The phrase green with envy must have come from somewhere, right?)

The film is due for release 14 March 2014 and will be in 3D.

By Adam

Adam has been a fan of Disney since he was small. He runs the Disneybrit Podcast. He is also the author of several Disney books.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.