Michelle Pfeiffer (Murder on the Orient Express, mother!) is in talks to join Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning and Ed Skrein in Maleficent 2, according to Variety. Pfeiffer, who can be seen next in Marvel’s Ant-Man and The Wasp, would play the queen in the movie.
Skrein recently came on board to play the villain in the sequel to the 2014 release, which grossed $759 million worldwide on a $180 million budget.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales helmer Joachim R∅nning will direct the film from a script by Jez Butterworth and Linda Woolverton. Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster wrote the most recent draft. Joe Roth is producing.
In the first film, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land’s fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal—an act that begins to turn her pure heart to stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces an epic battle with the invading king’s successor and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom—and perhaps to Maleficent’s true happiness as well.
Production on the sequel is set to start in 2018.
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
