The production line of Disney live-action remakes based on the studio’s back catalog of animated classics has only gathered pace with the advent of the company’s in-house streaming service. It provides a second avenue to debut re-imaginings of established favorites, with Peter Pan & Wendy and Pinocchio both heading straight to Disney Plus.
Even though the slate has increased in volume, sequels are still something of a rarity. Of course, The Lion King, Aladdin and Cruella all have new installments in development, but so far the only remakes to have generated more than one movie are Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent, both of which experienced massive box office drops compared to their predecessors.
Angelina Jolie single-handedly elevated her two turns as the Sleeping Beauty villain above mediocrity, as the Academy Award winner clearly relished the opportunity to go as big and broad as possible with her performances. Maleficent earned an impressive $758 million at the box office, but Mistress of Evil suffered a steep drop to end up with $491 million in the coffers, which is hardly an insignificant sum to be fair.
A new rumor from Giant Freakin Robot offers that Jolie is set to return for a third installment, and even though the news is labeled as being an “exclusive” from “trusted and proven sources”, the report offers less information than was already made public this summer. It was revealed in July of this year that another Maleficent was in the works, with the first draft of the script having already been written by Linda Woolverton and Evan Spiliotopoulos, so this isn’t anything we didn’t already know.
