2019 film by Joachim Rønning
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is a 2019 American fantasy film and a sequel to Maleficent (2014), itself a live-action adaptation of Walt Disney's 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty. Produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Roth/Kirschenbaum Films, it is the second installment in the Maleficent film series. The film was directed by Joachim Rønning and written by Linda Woolverton, Micah Fitzerman-Blue, and Noah Harpster. Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville reprise their roles from the first film, with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Harris Dickinson (replacing Brenton Thwaites), Ed Skrein, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Set five years after the first film, the film sees Maleficent face the neighboring kingdom's manipulated perception of herself as a villain, in addition to a subplot of the rise of an endangered, powerful fairy race of the Dark Fey.
After the release of the first film in May 2014, Jolie stated a sequel was possible. The project was officially announced the following June. Jolie signed on in April 2016. Rønning, who co-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) for Disney, was hired to direct the film in October 2017. The rest of the cast was added/confirmed in May 2018, with filming beginning that month at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England, lasting through August.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil premiered in Los Angeles on September 30, 2019, and was released in the United States theatrically on October 18 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the performances of Jolie, Fanning, and Pfeiffer, while criticizing the "muddled" plot and "overly artificial" visuals. The film grossed $491 million worldwide, although it needed to make around $500 million in order to make a profit theatrically when factoring in total budget, marketing and distribution costs. It also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the 92nd Academy Awards. A third film is currently in development.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.