With those pouty lips, the intense stare and her shapely figure, Angelina Jolie looks like an animated Disney villainess … and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Her casting as Sleeping Beauty nemesis Maleficent in a reimagining of the same name sounds pretty perfect, and so I’m excited to hear that – after months of misdirection – the actress confirmed that Maleficent will be her next project.
Speaking over the weekend at the Berlin International Film Festival, where her directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey screened out of competition, Jolie told THR, “I haven’t acted in two years, and I haven’t done anything else since this [meaning Honey]. The next thing I am looking at is a Disney movie.” In the interview, she also confirmed that a Luc Besson project she had been circling was now back in limbo.
We noted a few weeks back that Disney had hired Robert Stromberg to make his directorial debut on the project (after Tim Burton and a handful of other name had passed). As Katey pointed out at the time, Stromberg worked under Burton on his Alice In Wonderland, and it looks like the studio would like Maleficent to mirror that film’s formula and – hopefully – it’s box office success.
I think, however, that it has two other fairy tale features to compete against, namely Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror, both of which will be in theaters at some point this year. The two Snow White films place extreme emphasis on their evil queens, played by Charlize Theron and Julia Roberts, respectively. And while I don’t doubt that Jolie can carve her own unique approach to a wicked Disney villain, I wonder if audiences will have A-list villainess fatigue by the time Maleficent finally hits theaters.
