Trivia / Maleficent

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• Approval of God: Well, approval of Dante. Mary Costa, the voice of Aurora in the original, really liked the film, and especially praised Angelina Jolie's performance.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Why Angelina Jolie signed up for the role when she heard of the project, even though she was initially skeptical of whether or not they could make a feasible story. Same goes for Elle Fanning; she grew up watching Disney Princess movies and dressing up like them, so of course playing one (who also just happened to be one of her favorite princesses) in an actual film appealed to her.
• Corpsing: Discussed by Elle Fanning in one of the special features on the Blu-Ray. As it turns out, remaining still in an eternal sleep, while easy to draw on paper, can prove a bit of a challenge when one is a living, flesh-and-blood actress. The final film shows that she managed to pull it off, though.
• Dawson Casting: Inverted. Aurora is 15 and turns 16, while Elle Fanning was 14 during filming. Compare that to the original film, where Aurora looked like she was in her 20s and was voiced by the just-under-30 Mary Costa.
• Deleted Role: There was an actual Queen of the Fairies, Ulla, Maleficent's aunt, who cursed her with her horns to mark that she was a nuisance (her big wings were often disruptive), and King Kinloch, who ruled by her side. Miranda Richardson and Peter Capaldi were cast as these characters, respectively. Maleficent's father was also a minor character. These scenes were filmed but they were sadly cut.
• Deleted Scene: There were several scenes that were cut for time, including:
  • Diaval being the one to suggest Maleficent revoke the curse;
  • Stefan getting the idea to murder Maleficent from King Henry, who tells him that a true king needs to sacrifice even his loved ones to gain the crown;
  • and the pixies defecting from the Moors, rather than simply coming to the christening "to foster peace and goodwill."
• Fake Nationality: The movie's setting is a fantasy version of Scotland instead of France. It stars Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning, two American actresses doing a British accent, and the Australian Brenton Thwaites as Prince Philip.
• Fake Irish: The English Sam Riley uses an Irish accent to play Diaval.
• Fake Scot: Sharlto Copley, who is South-African, puts on a Scottish accent to play King Stefan.
• Follow the Leader: Downplayed in two cases.
  • The success of Alice in Wonderland (2010) helped get this film off the ground with Angelina Jolie signing up after (and Tim Burton, who directed Alice, was slated to direct this one too at one point). But the films were actually conceived around the same time, and the subsequent trend of Disney Live-Action Remakes owes as much or more to Maleficent since Alice isn't based on its namesake animated Disney film. Rather, it was more of a sequel to the original book.
  • Another inspiration for the film was the Broadway success of Wicked. The film was conceived in 2003, the same year Wicked made its debut. The production remained in Development Hell for a decade, however, making the connection to the musical less blatant by the time it premiered.
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • Elle Fanning re-watched the original animated movie to pick up Aurora's character tics, particularly scenes where Aurora walked through the woods.
  • Angelina Jolie also carefully watched the original film to get Eleanor Audley's speech patterns and accent right.
  • Sam Riley also studied ravens in order to get a feel for Diaval's character.
• Meaningful Release Date: The film was released on the 55th anniversary of Sleeping Beauty.
• The Other Marty: India Eisley was originally cast as Young Maleficent, but she was replaced with Ella Purnell after Disney executives expressed displeasure with her performance.
• Playing Against Type: Imelda Staunton, best known for playing the absolutely horrible Dolores Umbridge, is here a good fairy (though a rather incompetent, sometimes dangerously so, one, at least as far as being a human mother) who opposes evil.
• Produced By Castmember: Angelina Jolie starred as the title character and served as an executive producer.
• Promoted Fangirl: Maleficent was Angelina Jolie's favorite Disney character growing up; meanwhile, Elle Fanning loved Aurora since she was a young girl. Both got their chance to play them with this film.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Young Aurora is played by Jolie's daughter Vivienne Jolie-Pitt. This had to be invoked since she was the only child that didn't get scared when she saw Angelina in costume.
    • Pay close attention to the scene where Maleficent meets young Aurora. At one point Maleficent tells her to go away while Aurora is smiling up at her in delight. Note this part of the scene is filmed with separate closeups of Maleficent and Aurora. The "go away" lines were filmed separately because Jolie refused to say them to her own daughter.
  • Two of her other children are nobles in the Christening scene at the beginning.
• Recycled Script: A lot of the dialogue in the Christening scene was actually lifted from the animated film that Disney made years ago, with some of it being repurposed and additional dialogue inserted. The description of what happens afterwards also has this.
• Sleeper Hit: The film was expected to be a Box Office Bomb for Disney and despite mixed reviews, it wound being a financial hit, grossing over $700 million worldwide. In fact, it domestically outgrossed films such as Godzilla, Amazing Spiderman 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, 22 Jump Street, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This was in part due to a weak summer box office.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Although Angelina Jolie mainly wanted to do the film because she was such a huge Maleficent fan, she also wanted her children to be able to see one of her films.
  • Hilariously, several of her children performed ALONGSIDE her.
• What Could Have Been: The known development history and novelization indicate a lot of rewrites and late cuts that make a very different film:
  • The original script had King Stefan as a much darker character, being the half-fairy bastard son of Kinloch, King of the fairies, rather than just a farmboy, who never actually loved Maleficent at all, and who murders King Henry to take the throne rather win it from the already-dying King as in the finished film.
  • Maleficent and Stefan would have bonded as two outcasts in the Moors - Stefan as King Kinloch's bastard and Maleficent as the Black Sheep daughter of Queen Ulla's sister, who died in childbirth, and the malevolent Red Cap who would later groom Maleficent into becoming the vengeful dark fae she's known as.
  • Stefan would feel unwelcome at the Moors and this would motivate him to seek his place in the human world (explaining his line in the movie "How does it feel to be a fairy creature without wings in a world where you don't belong"), while Maleficent would hate anything human from the start, even things like masonry which she refers to as "dead stone". Maleficent would stand up for Stefan before the fairy king and queen, resulting in Queen Ulla's public humiliation after she openly cites the Open Secret that Stefan is the king's bastard son, prompting Ulla to punish her for speaking out by cursing her with horns for a hundred years.
  • On a visit to King Henry's castle, Stefan would be excited while Maleficent would be revolted after she finds that King Henry has enslaved fairies to serve him as jesters by locking them in an iron cage. She overhears the king conspiring to conquer the Moors by killing Queen Ulla and using the weak-willed Kinloch as a Puppet King, and attacks Henry. Stefan fails to stand up for her and pulls her aside to get her to stop "making a scene", causing their falling out. Princess Leila is also there, flirting with Stefan and causing Maleficent's jealousy.
  • At King Henry's castle, a boy tries persistently to touch Maleficent's wings despite her asking him to stop multiple times. At the same time she allows Stefan to touch her wings, only for him to cut them off later. The sexual harassment and assault undertones are thus stronger.
  • Henry's kingdom would have been portrayed as more explicitly The Empire: a more "advanced" civilization whose ruler lures the Hollywood Natives (the more rustic and Closer to Earth fairies) with inexpensive (to him) luxuries such as combs and mirrors and then plots to enslave them using Queen Ulla and King Kinloch as puppets. Maleficent is the Only Sane Woman that is aware of this but gets punished by King Kinloch with a Personal Raincloud when she tries to warn him.
  • After Stefan cuts off Maleficent's wings, she usurps power in the Moors more violently than in the film: normally, a new queen (after Ulla's death) is chosen when candidates step on a special stone which has to hum in approval. Maleficent steps on it uninvited, making the stone scream, after which she tosses it aside and then has to fight her own minions that she created earlier to subdue them. She also burns the Moors when she rages at the news of Stefan using her wings to ascend to the throne. At the end, the Queen stone is restored and approves Aurora as a rightful ruler of the Moors.
  • On top of that, the novelization has the dying King double-crossing Stefan for being a commoner and denying him the promised reward. Stefan then suffocates him and forges the succession decree. Nice people.
  • A little more regarding Maleficent's father: he was actually a Red Cap, one of the most feared and bloodthirsty of the Fair Folk. He would appear to Maleficent in the ruined castle near the Moors, encouraging her to slip further and further into villainy. Upon learning about Aurora's curse, he would voice his approval, stating it's the kind of thing he would have done. Maleficent would be bothered by this.
  • Various novelizations also feature a character named Robin, who would have been Maleficent's friend growing up. A small, winged faerie, he would have tried to warn Maleficent about humans, but in vain as she ended up befriending Stefan. He disappears from the narrative once Maleficent meets Diaval.
  • Maleficent was also supposed to be far colder to Aurora initially; instead of sending Diaval to care for her as a baby, she was to, effectively, leave her to die, and Diaval would end up secretly looking out for Aurora while bringing Maleficent around.
  • Toby Regbo was, originally, cast as Young Stefan but was declared too old and recast.
  • The original ending had Aurora become a full-faerie, and she would be Queen of only the Moors.
  • There are also smaller things, such as the fairies being even worse caretakers and sort of Alpha Bitches to Maleficent and Stefan; Diaval and Maleficent actually being an Official Couple instead of just acting like one; Queen Leila surviving and being a Reasonable Authority Figure to Stefan's Caligula; and Maleficent cursing Aurora to die, with Thistlewit softening it like in the original.
  • According to The Los Angeles Times, Guillermo del Toro was said that he was considered to direct.
  • Kristen Stewart was considered for Aurora.
  • Judi Dench and Emma Thompson were considered for the fairies.
  • Patrick Stewart was considered for a role.
  • Jude Law was considered for King Stefan.
  • The producers briefly toyed with the idea of reuniting Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy from Hocus Pocus as the three pixies for this film.
  • According to Don Hahn, he initially developed the film as an animated feature, but after Angelina Jolie signed on it became live-action.
• Word of God:
  • While they only get Maybe Ever After in the actual movie, screenwriter Linda Woolverton has stated that Phillip and Aurora will get together eventually. Woolverton's statement eventually became true with the release of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.
  • She also said that the idea for the film's plot came about after she researched the original "Sleeping Beauty" fairy tale and saw that Maleficent was actually a fairy (most fans tend to mistake her for a simple witch). From there, she wondered why Maleficent didn't have wings like the other fairies, and came up with the story presented on screen. This is actually referenced in the film, during a conversation between Aurora and Maleficent.

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