Maleficent (2014) is a dark, live-action retelling of Walt Disney's 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty, told from the perspective of Maleficent, the original film's antagonist. The film explores Maleficent's backstory, emphasizing her sympathetic qualities and complicated past to explain how she became "evil" in the first place. Maleficent was initially pitched in 2003 following the massive success of the Broadway musical Wicked, which tells the origin story of the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz. Despite its disturbing themes and sinister tone, the film was rated PG.
Starring two-time Academy Award-winning actress Angelina Jolie, Maleficent was director Robert Stromberg's directorial debut. With a budget of $180 million, the film grossed a worldwide total of $758.5 million. Despite being the highest-grossing film ever for a debut director, the film received a mixed reception from critics who praised Jolie's performance, the visual effects, and the music but critiqued the script and storytelling. Roger Ebert writer Matt Zoller Seitz credited the film for creating an atmosphere that was "profoundly disturbing, in the way that ancient myths and Grimm fairy tales are disturbing," despite the movie's "clumsy filmmaking."
Director Robert Stromberg used his strong visual effects background to create the film's eerie atmosphere by mixing practical and computer-generated effects. According to screenwriter Linda Woolverton, the script suffered from at least 15 studio-mandated rewrites, cutting significant scenes and characters even after shooting. The film's highly criticized opening act was almost entirely reshoots. Elizabeth Rudnick wrote a tie-in novelization of the film, published by Disney Publishing Worldwide in 2014.
Overall, Maleficent was commercially successful and widely praised by audiences despite receiving middling reviews from critics. In 2019, Disney released a sequel to the film, entitled Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, directed by Joachim Rønning from a screenplay by Linda Woolverton.
