Though we’ve had a couple of trailers that fairly comprehensively set the scene for Disney’s new re-working of the Sleeping Beauty story with Maleficent, it’s clearly time in the film’s promotional schedule for the cast and crew to reveal their thinking behind the expanded story. A new featurette has hit the web to do just that.
Maleficent, as you’ll know by now, takes the familiar Sleeping Beauty elements and offers up some explanation for why shunned fairy Maleficent curses the young princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) to fall into a deep sleep on her 16th birthday. Turns out there was a lot of story we weren’t told in the run up the Aurora’s birth and christening, and Maleficent was badly wronged by the humans around her.
As Jolie and co explain, this new take on the tale kicks off years before the events of the fairy tale, as chronicled in the 1959 Disney animation, and then proceeds to re-tell them from Maleficent’s point of view. According to Jolie, it’s “very different from what people are going to expect…”
Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville are also among the ensemble for the film, which arrives in UK cinemas on May 28.