Where to watch Maleficent (2014)

Trivia & production notes

• The concept for Maleficent originated in 2003 during a meeting in Disney's animation department, inspired by the recent success of the Broadway musical Wicked.
• Tim Burton was pitched the Maleficent project in December 2004 while opening the Mary Poppins musical in London's West End and immediately expressed interest in directing it.
• Sean Bailey independently began developing Maleficent as a live-action feature before learning Disney was already working on the project, and he specifically wanted Angelina Jolie for the lead role.
• The film transitioned from animation to live-action development after Disney acquired Pixar and reorganized its animation department in 2006.
• Robert Stromberg, who served as production designer on Alice in Wonderland, made his directorial debut with Maleficent after initially being asked to design Oz the Great and Powerful.
• Linda Woolverton's screenplay underwent at least 15 versions throughout production, with Paul Dini also performing rewrites on the project.
• Miranda Richardson and Peter Capaldi were cast as the fairy king and queen but their entire roles were cut during editing, along with more than 15 minutes from the first act of the film.
• In earlier drafts, the character Stefan was written as the half-human, half-fairy bastard son of King Henry before the story was revised.
• Angelina Jolie was the sole casting choice for Maleficent from the beginning, with no other actresses considered for the role.
• The project spent over a decade in development before entering production, beginning as a concept in 2003 and not shooting until years later.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Maleficent (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.