Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Joachim Rønning’s 2019 film opens on Aurora’s decision to marry and moves the first film’s two hander into a war between two kingdoms. The scale is saved for one place. Rønning says the castle siege closing the film runs about twenty minutes and took nine months to edit, so the last sixth of 119 minutes is one battle. Maleficent meanwhile leaves the centre for a long stretch carried by Queen Ingrith and Aurora. The scene that puts Angelina Jolie and Michelle Pfeiffer across a table at length is the Ulstead dinner. At the Oscars it was nominated for makeup and hairstyling alone, that going to Paul Gooch, Arjen Tuiten and David White, not for costume design. The costume honour came from elsewhere: Ellen Mirojnick’s science fiction and fantasy win at the Costume Designers Guild. The nest of the Dark Fey was never fully built; Rønning calls the part the actors stand on real set, the rest digital. Disney had announced the film for May 2020 before pulling it forward to October 2019. It finished on 491.7 million dollars worldwide, mostly outside North America. A good fit if you want a sequel that holds its money back and spends it on one uninterrupted siege. Not for anyone expecting Maleficent kept at the centre, since Ingrith drives most of this.