Maleficent (film)

Maleficent is a 2014 American fantasy film starring Angelina Jolie as the title character in a live-action retelling of her villainous role in Walt Disney's 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty, itself an adaptation of Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale. The film is directed by Robert Stromberg from a screenplay by Linda Woolverton. It also stars Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville in supporting roles.

Maleficent came under development as an animated project in 2003, before it was changed to a live-action feature in 2006, following Disney's acquisition of Pixar. Tim Burton was originally attached to direct the film, but eventually left and was replaced by Stromberg in his directorial debut. Jolie signed on to play the title role in January 2012 and also served as the film's executive producer, alongside Michael Vieira, Don Hahn, Palak Patel, Matt Smith, and Sarah Bradshaw. The rest of the main cast joined between March and May 2012. Principal photography took place at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England, from June to October 2012.

Maleficent premiered in El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on May 28, 2014, and was released in the United States theatrically on May 30 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised Jolie's performance and visual effects, with criticism aimed at the script and Stromberg's direction. The film was a commercial success, grossing over $758 million worldwide, and became the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2014, as well as Jolie's highest-grossing film. Amongst Disney's live-action adaptations, Maleficent is the seventh-most-expensive and sixth-highest-grossing film to date. It also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design at the 87th Academy Awards. A sequel, titled Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, was released in 2019.

Maleficent is a powerful fairy living in the Moors, a magical forest realm bordering a human kingdom. As a child, she meets a human peasant boy named Stefan, and they fall in love with each other. However, as they get older, they grow apart, with Stefan's love being overshadowed by his ambition to be king, while Maleficent becomes protector of the Moors.

When King Henry attempts to conquer the Moors, Maleficent mortally wounds him. On his deathbed, he declares that whoever kills her will be king and marry his daughter Leila. Stefan visits Maleficent and drugs her. Stefan refuses to kill her, so he cuts off her wings and presents them as "proof" of her death. While distraught by the loss of her wings, Maleficent saves Diaval, a trapped raven, from a farmer and turns him into a human. Diaval offers his service and tells her of Stefan's coronation. Infuriated over the betrayal, Maleficent grows cruel and bitter, ruling the Moors with an iron fist.

Years later, Diaval informs Maleficent about the christening of Stefan's newborn daughter, Aurora. Maleficent arrives uninvited and places a curse on Aurora: before the sun sets on Aurora's sixteenth birthday, Aurora will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a death-like sleep. Maleficent mocks Stefan's plea for mercy, but offers that Aurora's curse can be broken by true love's kiss, which she and Stefan both believe is nonexistent. Stefan orders three pixies, Knotgrass, Flittle, and Thistlewit, to hide and protect Aurora in a forest cottage until the day after her sixteenth birthday. He also destroys every spinning wheel in the kingdom, hiding their remnants in the castle dungeon; he then sends his army to kill Maleficent, but she surrounds the Moors with a wall of thorns. Over the years, Stefan, who begins mass-manufacturing iron weapons, which are lethal to fairies, grows obsessed with killing Maleficent and gradually goes insane, even refusing to see his own wife on her deathbed.

Maleficent and Diaval watch Aurora grow from afar, and secretly begin taking over care of her from the incompetent pixies. After several face-to-face encounters with Maleficent, whom she believes to be her "fairy godmother", Aurora bonds with her and regularly visits the Moors. Realizing she doesn't have the heart to hurt Aurora, Maleficent privately and unsuccessfully attempts to undo Aurora's curse, forgetting she stated "no power on earth" can do so. Meanwhile, Aurora meets Philip, a prince from the neighboring kingdom, and both are mildly attracted to each other.

Aurora gains Maleficent's permission to live in the Moors before her sixteenth birthday. The next day however, the pixies reveal Aurora's lineage and curse before she can inform them. Heartbroken, Aurora rides to her father's castle, where Stefan locks her up, intent on killing Maleficent and angered that the pixies didn't do their job. As the sun sets, the curse's power hypnotically draws Aurora to the dungeon, where Aurora pricks her finger on a spindle of a rebuilt magic spinning wheel and falls into a death-like sleep. Hoping to save her, Maleficent and Diaval kidnap Philip and infiltrate the castle. Despite the pixies urging him, Philip's kiss fails. Afterward, Maleficent tearfully kisses Aurora, awakening her with true maternal love.

As Maleficent, Aurora, and Diaval attempt to leave, Stefan and his guards ambush them. Maleficent transforms Diaval into a dragon, but both are subdued. Aurora finds and releases Maleficent's caged wings, which reattach themselves to Maleficent, allowing her to fight back. Maleficent drags Stefan to the top of a tower; unwilling to kill him, she announces the fight is over and leaves, but Stefan tackles her from behind, dragging them both off; she saves herself with her wings, while he loses hold and falls to his death.

With Stefan gone, Maleficent returns the Moors to their former glory and crowns Aurora their new ruler, uniting the two kingdoms. Aurora also starts a relationship with Philip.

The film also features Brenton Thwaites as Philip, a prince who befriends and falls in love with Aurora. Kenneth Cranham portrays King Henry, Stefan's predecessor and Leila's father, whose efforts to conquer the Moors get him slain by Maleficent. Hannah New portrays Princess Leila, King Henry's daughter, Stefan's wife, and Aurora's mother. New described her character as a "demure, untouchable princess."

The idea for Maleficent was conceived during Don Hahn's meeting with the Disney's animation department in 2003, where it was pitched as an animation project revolving around the origin of the eponymous antagonist from Walt Disney's animated film Sleeping Beauty (1959). The timing of the idea was inspired by the just-released Broadway musical Wicked. While opening the musical adaptation of Mary Poppins in the West End of London in December 2004, Hahn met with Tim Burton to pitch him several movie ideas for Disney, including Maleficent, which Burton was instantly interested in. Simultaneously, Sean Bailey (who was an independent producer at the time) began developing the same concept for a live-action feature, which he envisioned as a "Disney version of Michael Corleone in The Godfather. Have a character do something that's empirically terrible – curse a child – but set it up in such a way that you felt differently about it." Bailey wanted Angelina Jolie for the role of Maleficent and mentioned the idea during lunch with Jolie's manager, receiving a positive response within a few hours. When Bailey presented his concept to the Disney executives, they told him about Hahn's project and suggested they team up. Jolie's interest in the title role prompted the filmmakers to consider moving Maleficent from animation to live-action, which they did after Disney acquired Pixar and reshuffled the animation department in 2006. The project was eventually suspended due to Burton being busy working on Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Alice in Wonderland.

By the summer of 2009, as Alice in Wonderland entered post-production, Burton renewed his interest in Maleficent. Around the same time, Hahn approached Linda Woolverton (who had just collaborated with Burton on Alice) to write the script. Burton dismissed his involvement with the film as a rumor in February 2010, but the following month, The Guardian reported that he would helm the project, with The Hollywood Reporter confirming Woolverton as the film's writer. At that point, Richard D. Zanuck also joined the production as a producer (until his death in 2012). After Woolverton boarded the project, the creative team (which included Woolverton, Burton, Hahn, and Zanuck) began developing the story, with several drafts made over the course of almost a year. In November 2010, Burton confirmed that he would direct Maleficent, but he had withdrawn by May 2011, due to his commitment to Dark Shadows. After Burton's departure, David Yates, Darren Aronofsky, and David O. Russell were considered to take over as director. Guillermo del Toro also expressed interest in directing Maleficent, citing the original 1959 animated film as one of his favorite Disney features. By September 2011, Joe Roth had joined the project as a producer, and in January 2012, Deadline Hollywood reported that Robert Stromberg (who had been the production designer on Alice in Wonderland) would helm Maleficent in his directorial debut. Palak Patel (the film's executive producer) said that after finishing Alice, Stromberg "really wanted to direct. We said, 'Okay, but we've got Oz the Great and Powerful and we need a production designer. Why don't you do Oz, then we'll make a movie.' In the middle of shooting [Oz], Maleficent came in."

Linda Woolverton's screenplay went through at least 15 versions as the film progressed in production. Stromberg said: "I met many times with Linda Woolverton, the writer. We did lots of roundtable discussions and sort of cut out the fat as much as we could and sort of purified the storyline as much as we could". Paul Dini also performed rewrites on the project with Stromberg, and was credited in early press. In some earlier versions of the story, Stefan was the half-human, half-fairy bastard son of King Henry. The version of the screenplay that went into shooting originally included two characters called Queen Ulla and King Kinloch, the fairy queen and fairy king of the Moors and the aunt and uncle of Maleficent. Miranda Richardson and Peter Capaldi were cast and shot the Queen Ulla and King Kinloch scenes, but their roles were cut in the editing process together with more than 15 minutes of the first act of the film. Stromberg said, "We spent a bit more time originally in the fairy world before we got into the human side of things ... we wanted to get it [the film] under two hours. So we cut about 15 minutes out of the first act, and then that had to be seamed together with some pretty basic reshoots."