Angelina Jolie comes out of the shadows in a TV spot for the upcoming Disney film Maleficent. Jolie, with her razor-sharp cheekbones and purring English accent, is the unforgettable and stylish Disney baddie.
The new trailer for Disney’s Maleficent opens with footage from the Disney film that inspired it: 1959’s animated classic Sleeping Beauty. “Behind the kiss, behind the magic, behind the legend of Sleeping Beauty,” promises the trailer for this year’s Maleficent, which cuts between the two films in an effort to draw a direct connection between them.
The key difference in Maleficent is a matter of perspective. The live-action film aims to do for the titular Sleeping Beauty baddie what Wicked did for The Wizard of Oz by retelling a familiar story from the perspective of the ostensible villain. Angelina Jolie plays Maleficent, in her first starring role since 2010’s The Tourist
On paper, Maleficent sounds like a can’t-miss proposition for Disney, but the film’s success isn’t exactly assured. In recent months, Disney has earned major kudos for Frozen, which upended many of the genre conventions that Disney itself helped to popularise.
Maleficent comes out May 30, the same weekend as Seth MacFarlane’s comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West. They’ll both be competing against X-Men: Days of Future Past, which opens the week before.
