Elle Fanning In Talks To Play Princess Aurora In 'Maleficent' Opposite Angelina Jolie

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by Kevin Jagernauth
March 8, 2012 6:06 PM
7 Comments

While Dakota Fanning's most recent big screen effort looks like this, her sister Elle Fanning has been the one with the lucky horseshoe lately. Counting David Fincher, Cameron Crowe, Sofia Coppola, J.J. Abrams and Francis Ford Coppola among the directors she's recently worked with, the actress is now looking to bank time with Angelina Jolie on the set of her next film.

Twitch reveal that Elle is in talks to star opposite Jolie in the brewing "Maleficent." More or less confirmed last month by Jolie as her next big screen role, the film is a reboot of the classic fairy tale (of course) that would see Mrs. Brad Pitt as the evil witch and Fanning as Princess Aurora, who gets lulled into a long slumber. We haven't seen the Broadway production, but we presume she won't be sleeping for the whole movie. The Jolie/Fanning pairing seems pretty unstoppable, and as much as another fairy tale movie makes us want to tear our hair out, it's hard to argue with those leads.

Newbie Robert Stromberg (production designer on “Alice In Wonderland,” “Avatar” and “Oz: The Great and Powerful”) is being tasked with making his directorial debut on the movie, proving Disney has learned little from taking that approach on "John Carter." No release date yet but THR reports shooting will begin in June.

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7 Comments

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Else | March 9, 2012 7:15 AMReply

Please NO, don't remake this classic and attach that thing that sleeps with Brad Pitt to it.
Chris | March 8, 2012 6:42 PMReply

I know it was his live-action debut, but he's still directed two previous (extremely well-regarded) films, and served as co-director on a third. That's WAY different from someone who's never directed a movie taking on a major tentpole like this. In any case, moving from directing animated films to live-action certainly didn't hurt Brad Bird. The way you put it, you're making a broad and unfair implication that somehow Stanton's failure on "John Carter" somehow proves something - that just because he failed, that means that it's intrinsically a bad idea to hire a successful animated director to helm a live-action film. Which is absurd on your part.

And that's aside from the absurdity of the direct comparison you drew between the two situations anyway. Production designer-to-director = Animated director-to-live-action-director? Hardly. If you wanted to make any comparison in that regard at all, how about production designer Bo Welch taking the helm of "The Cat in the Hat," with disastrous results?
Jeff | March 8, 2012 9:53 PM

Bird made a wonderful live-action debut on MI4. Count Frank Tashlin as another animation director who made a brilliant transition to live-action. John Carter may suck, and maybe it's even partially Stanton's fault. He's obviously an incredibly talented guy though, and I hope he gets another shot. Good directors come from other artistic roles in the industry all the time. Robert Stromberg's resume isn't particularly appealing, but I wouldn't chalk up Maleficent's ultimate success or failure to his background as a production designer.
Chris | March 8, 2012 6:21 PMReply

Kevin - Maybe I missed something, but can you clarify that statement about "taking that approach with 'John Carter'"? The JC director certainly did not come from production design, nor was he making his directorial debut, so I'm not sure what that comment means. Maybe it refers to something from earlier in that movie's long, slow development, I don't know. Just wanted to clarify.
Kevin | March 8, 2012 6:30 PM

It was his live action debut.
Kendra | March 8, 2012 6:10 PMReply

I would love to see Charlize Theron and Angelina Jolie battle it out as evil queens. My money is on Theron just because she's a far better actress than Jolie.
kitcon | March 8, 2012 10:39 PM

Theron is already battling rival evil queen Julia Roberts. Maleficent is an evil fairy, not a queen. I'm not aware that there's a Broadway prod of Maleficent but it's often been compared to Wicked about the witch in Oz.