Taglines: Don’t believe the fairy tale.
“Maleficent” explores the untold story of Disney’s most iconic villain from the classic “Sleeping Beauty and the elements of her betrayal that ultimately turn her pure heart to stone. Driven by revenge and a fierce desire to protect the moors over which she presides, Maleficent cruelly places an irrevocable curse upon the human king’s newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Aurora is caught in the middle of the seething conflict between the forest kingdom she has grown to love and the human kingdom that holds her legacy. Maleficent realizes that Aurora may hold the key to peace in the land and is forced to take drastic actions that will change both worlds forever.
Maleficent is a dark fantasy film directed by Robert Stromberg and produced by Walt Disney Pictures, from a screenplay written by Paul Dini and Linda Woolverton. Starring Angelina Jolie as the eponymous Disney Villainess character, the film is both a prequel and a re-imagining of Walt Disney’s 1959 animated adaptation of Sleeping Beauty, and portrays the story from the perspective of the antagonist, Maleficent. It began filming on June 18, 2012, and is scheduled for release on May 30, 2014 in the Disney Digital 3D and RealD 3D formats, as well as in conventional theatres.
About the Story
An elderly narrator tells the story of Maleficent, a strong and powerful faerie living in the Moors, a magical realm bordering a human kingdom. As a young girl, she falls in love with a human peasant boy named Stefan, but his affection for Maleficent is overshadowed by his ambition to become king. As they grow older, Stefan stops seeing Maleficent. After Maleficent defeats the current king in battle when he attempts to invade the Moors, he offers to name whoever kills her, his successor. Stefan overhears this, goes to see Maleficent and deceives her into thinking that he has come to warn her of the king’s plot.
He drugs her and attempts to kill her, but cannot bring himself to do it, so he cuts off her wings with iron (iron burns faeries) and presents them to the king as proof of her death. Maleficent rescues a raven named Diaval to serve as her informant and he reports to her that Stefan has been crowned king. The realization that Stefan betrayed her to gain the throne devastates Maleficent and in retaliation, declares herself queen of the Moors, forming a dark oppressive kingdom with Diaval as her one companion.
Some time later, Diaval informs Maleficent that King Stefan is hosting a christening for his newborn daughter, Aurora. Bent on revenge, Maleficent arrives uninvited and curses the newborn princess: on her sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, which will cause her to fall into a death like sleep.
After Stefan is forced by Maleficent to beg for his daughter, she offers a caveat: the curse can be broken by true love’s kiss. Terrified of Maleficent’s vengeance, Stefan sends Aurora to live with three pixies (Knotgrass, Flittle and Thistlewit) until the day after her sixteenth birthday, while he destroys and burns all the spinning wheels in the kingdom and hides them in the deepest dungeon in the castle. He sends out his armies to find and kill Maleficent, but she surrounds the Moors with an impenetrable wall of thorns.
Maleficent
Directed by: Robert Stromberg
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Juno Temple, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Toby Regbo, Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Brenton Thwaites, Sarah Flind
Screenplay by: Paul Dini, Linda Woolverton, John Lee Hancock
Production Design by: Dylan Cole, Gary Freeman
Cinematography by: Dean Semler
Film Editing by: Chris Lebenzon, Richard Pearson
Costume Design by: Anna B. Sheppard
Set Decoration by: Lee Sandales
Music by: James Newton Howard
MPAA Rating: PG for sequences of fantasy action and violence, including frightening images.
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures
Release Date: May 30, 2014
Visits: 112
