From #OriginalSin to #Changeling, all the highlights — and lowlights —of Angelina Jolie's film career: https://t.co/EXFRiGEGim pic.twitter.com/IKJkioCjbu

— Variety (@Variety) October 20, 2019

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt just left island after scouting for film locations in #Gozo http://t.co/vByXsim9Gd
— Ariadne Massa (@AriadneMassa) June 9, 2014

Times of Malta

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt location scouting in Gozo

Monday, June 9, 2014, 11:06 

Film  stars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have just left Malta after a 36-hour stop to scout for locations for a film they will produce later this year.
The Hollywood superstars were mainly in Gozo, scouting the bays on the sister island, timesofmalta.com has learnt.
They were also seen on a tour of the coastline on a yacht.
Sources said the pair have shortlisted Malta as one of a handful of countries where to shoot their film, which is slated to start at the end of summer.
They were last here in 2011 when Pitt was busy with the shooting of World War Z. While in Malta Jolie promoted refugee causes as a UNHCR ambassador.
Pitt was also in Malta in 2003 for the filming of the epic Troy in which he played Achilles.



======

If true, I wish Roger Deakins could be their cinematographer but he appears to be already booked through the end of the year with Dennis Villeneuve's Sicario and the Coen brothers' Hail Caesar.

I assume the film is the one they will star in together and here are some of her quotes about it:

usatoday
"I wrote something we've talked about maybe doing together. Something little and experimental. (John) Cassavetes-style." Maleficent screenwriter Linda Woolverton calls Jolie's writing style modern and "very funny." As for financing? "We have everything we need if we choose to do it. We're really considering it."

manilabulletin
“I wrote something for us to do about four years ago. We have been thinking about doing it but now we are edging closer to thinking we should jump in. It’s a much more independent film, much more experimental, very personal. So it will be very different for both of us. It will be very challenging for us as actors.”

Within 12month span, #BradPitt & #AngelinaJolie are both scoring their top-grossing films ever w/ #Maleficent & WorldWarZ.
— Gitesh Pandya (@giteshpandya) June 8, 2014

Girl power? Hollywood remains firmly in the boys club http://t.co/ugnUO4vonu
— USA TODAY News (@usatodaynews) June 8, 2014

Scott Bowles, USA TODAY
 11:48 a.m. EDT June 8, 2014

Despite boasting Angelina Jolie, a $180 million budget and one of the most famous names in fairy tale lore, Maleficent entered theaters May 30 amid a swirl of skepticism.

Would Jolie's four-year absence from the big screen hurt the movie's debut, analysts pondered. Would kids remember Maleficent from her 1969 roots in Sleeping Beauty? Most pressing, pundits asked: Would boys turn out for a modern-day fairy tale?

The boys did turn out — and they weren't that critical. The film was an overwhelming No. 1, earned $20 million above expectations and became the biggest hit of Jolie's career.

It also underscored a Hollywood gender bias that some scholars and analysts say is training girls to settle for male-geared movies, much like their grown-up counterparts.

"No one is asking whether girls will turn out for a comic-book movie; the assumption is yes," says Wheeler Winston Dixon, a film professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. "We are socializing young girls that this is how the movies are. Women make up an enormous percentage of moviegoers but their role is marginalized in movies, particularly in summer."

Indeed, though new data by the Motion Picture Association of America indicates that women and girls make up 52% of the American moviegoing public, just a fraction of films are geared toward them.

Of the top 10 movies of 2014, only No. 6, Divergent, is anchored by a female.

And a recent analysis by online trade publication The Wrap finds that of the 39 big-studio releases that were planned for this summer, only Jupiter Ascending, which was originally set for a July 18 release but has been pushed to February 2015, has a female director, Lana Wachowski, along with her co-director brother Andy Wachowski.

The trend, analysts say, comes despite evidence that female-friendly films can be goldmines. This weekend's The Fault in Our Stars scored a stunning No. 1 with $48 million. Still, Hollywood primarily courts boys.


"The summer is nearly always testosterone-driven," says Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Rentrak. "But look at franchises that are flexing their muscles: The Hunger Games, Twilight, Divergent. There's an untapped market with unbelievable potential."

Not that studios aren't looking for their next young-adult hit. This weekend's $12 million Stars, based on the popular book about a romance between two young cancer patients, crushed Tom Cruise's $178 million sci-fi extravaganza Edge of Tomorrow. And on July 25, Scarlett Johansson tries her hand at a solo action hero in Lucy, Luc Besson's story about a woman-turned-warrior. A month later, Chloë Grace Moretz anchors If I Stay, about a girl whose life is changed after a car accident.

Still, observers are puzzled by the paucity of offerings for girls, particularly given the success of female-led movies: Last year's Frozen and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire were two of the three top-grossing films of the year, earning a combined $824 million. The next Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I opens Nov. 21, with Jennifer Lawrence returning in the starring role.

"While the guys are home playing video games and surfing the Internet, the ladies are making an event of going to the movies," Dergarabedian says. "Look at Sex and the City and Magic Mike. These are girls' nights out, and there's business to be done outside of just comic book movies."

Speaking of which: "How do we not have a Wonder Woman movie?" asks Dixon, who teaches a course on superhero films. "There's a huge fan base, of males and females. But women are ignored by the superhero system."

Dixon says the bias is a byproduct of an industry dominated in all other realms by one gender. "If your film is directed by a man, shot by a man, acted by a man and distributed by men, whose bias is it going to reflect? It's easy to see, but it's been entrenched and accepted for too long."

But Brad Ricca, author of Super Boys, about the creators of the Superman comics, says that's selling females short.

"Superhero movies absolutely appeal to girls and women," says Ricca, who teaches film at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "Just because the protagonists are generally male doesn't mean the films are marketed to boys."

In fact, he says, "these recent films are being marketed to girls. A major selling point of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the off-screen romance between stars Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, which commercials for the movie were focused on. We didn't even see some of the major villains in the trailers, which would be easy marks for eager comics boys."

Even Disney executives, who distributed Maleficent, concede the scheduling vacuum for female fare was a no-brainer, pundits notwithstanding.

"As you think of what's available this summer, you have Captain America, Spider-Man, Godzilla," says Dave Hollis, Disney's president of distribution. "They have a certain, well, male feel. A rock-'em-sock-'em nature. We saw a need for relief, palate-wise."

But will Hollywood's taste change permanently?

"It can take the business a while to catch up," Dergarabedian says. "But you can't deny what's happening in theaters. Studios that ignore the phenomenon do so at their own peril."

By the way, 365 days after I wrote about how there were no women in theaters, the two top movies are going to be TFIOS and Maleficent.

— Linda Holmes (@nprmonkeysee) June 9, 2014

@BRY0NIC Maleficent was also a gutsy and very wise release date.

— John Green (@realjohngreen) June 9, 2014

My column on Angelina Jolie on her kids, Brad and being MALEFICENT in MANILA BULLETIN http://t.co/veJ9XZ07Rk pic.twitter.com/nQJmZEHcbI
— Janet R. Nepales (@jrnepales) May 25, 2014

Los Angeles – Wearing a sexy, black long-sleeved lace dress, Angelina Jolie, 38, looked quite trim when we spoke with her recently for her latest Disney movie, “Maleficent.” Always a delight to interview, Angelina was her usual frank, articulate, and intelligent self.

The mother of six – Maddox Chivan, 12, Pax Thien, 10, Zahara Marley, 9, Shiloh Nouvel, 7, Knox Leon, 5, and Vivienne Marcheline, 5 – talked a lot about her kids, their different personalities and her very supportive fiancé, Brad Pitt.

In the Robert Stromberg-helmed dark fantasy-adventure film “Maleficent,” Angelina, who portrays the eponymous villainess, is mother to her own daughter Vivienne, who portrays the young Princess Aurora. The role was first offered by Angelina to her other daughter Shiloh..

“I wasn’t really seriously offering it to her because obviously as her mom, I know there wasn’t a chance she would consider being a princess,” Angelina said. “I couldn’t have gotten her in a dress or a skirt her whole life. So I did mention it to her and she did find it really funny. She may have been slightly offended by it, by the idea of being a princess.”

The movie also features Elle Fanning (Princess Aurora), Sharlto Copley (Stefan), Sam Riley (Diaval) and two of Angelina’s other kids – Pax and Zahara – in minor parts.

Asked if the kids have a hand in her decision to make the film, Angelina replied, “Of course. Nothing gives me more pleasure than entertaining children like my own. I like doing something that can bring joy around the world and connect, because the way children respond to film, obviously, is so magical. I enjoy making them laugh.”

Angelina admits, “I haven’t done many films like that. I didn’t know if I would be very good at it. I haven’t been offered those roles. I never thought of myself as being Disney or funny, but I always wanted to be able to do these kinds of films. I was so excited to get the opportunity and I love the message in the film. I told my children the message of the film and when I first read the script, I pulled them aside. I said, ‘I have a secret to tell you; you know Maleficent? Well, there’s something you don’t know.’ And I told them the story and they were really engaged. It really meant something to them.

“Part of having Pax and Zahara in the christening scene, was, when they are there, I am more playful. It was really nice to make a movie where it was just about entertaining and being generous as an artist and not being self-conscious, but just giving.”

Angelina added that her kids really loved the movie.

“They have seen it – not in 3D – but they love it. They think it’s cool… They all got upset when Mommy got hurt, which is the secret of the movie, but that moment when that happens, some of my kids cried.”

“Knox now thinks I can turn birds into people. He sees birds outside and he goes, ‘Mommy, there’s a bird, go get the bird.’”

As for her wedding with Brad, Angelina said, “We cannot confirm. There’s no wedding. We don’t even know actually when we could get back to France for our vacation because of the work schedule we have.”

She revealed, though, that she and Brad will be doing another movie together. “I wrote something for us to do about four years ago. We have been thinking about doing it but now we are edging closer to thinking we should jump in. It’s a much more independent film, much more experimental, very personal. So it will be very different for both of us. It will be very challenging for us as actors.”

As for their relationship, Angelina said, “The way Brad treats me, the way he takes care of me, and makes something special on Mother’s Day with all the kids and gets them all up to do, he is teaching them to respect women, respect their mother. And the girls are showing an example of how they expect to be treated. It’s not just being lovers and partners and friends. It’s being family.”

Angelina Jolie, in a wide-ranging interview,opens up on many topics,fr. the kids to Brad Pitt. http://t.co/tizcBkpHxW pic.twitter.com/JT6kh6a3Ys
— ruben nepales (@nepalesruben) May 26, 2014

Only In Hollywood

Angelina Jolie will ‘possibly’ direct own starrer, with Brad

By Ruben V. Nepales
Philippine Daily Inquirer

IN THIS interview, Angelina Jolie says she never believed in true love until she had children. ruben nepales

LOS ANGELES—Angelina Jolie will “possibly” direct the film that she and Brad Pitt will costar in, their first since 2005’s “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” The actress-director, beautiful in a black Valentino dress in our recent interview at Four Seasons Hotel in LA, confirmed the buzz about the project.

“Yeah, there is something. I wrote something…about four years ago.”

“We have been thinking about doing it for a while now,” added Angelina, who clasped her hands most of the time during our chat. She was candid as usual—one of her endearing traits. “Now we are edging closer to thinking we should jump in. It’s kind of an independent film, much more experimental in style, very personal. It’s different, difficult for us in a good way; very challenging for us as actors.”

In Disney’s “Maleficent,” she plays the title role, the studio’s most popular villain since she appeared to put a spell on “Sleeping Beauty” in 1959 (fittingly, it’s the character’s 55th anniversary). Asked if she feels evil, Angelina replied, “Of course. I spend most of my time, especially with the United Nations, on borders where people have crossed with their children. Their homes have been burned. They have been gas-attacked; their nails pulled out; children wounded.

“So I feel that there certainly is evil in the world. Evil took those girls from their school [in Nigeria]. We need to understand its root causes [and] see if there’s a way to really fight evil. Justice is one; education is another; strength of will to unite among good people with good energy.”

Cameos for kids

One of Angelina’s daughters with Brad, Vivienne, appears as the young Princess Aurora in “Maleficent.” Pax and Zahara, whom Angelina calls Z, have cameos. We asked the proud mom if her kids are truly interested in acting and how different they are.

“They are all very different personalities,” said Angelina, her face lighting up. “I don’t think they have an interest in acting. If they [did] I would encourage them to do that and something else. It’s not good for acting to be the center of one’s life. Our idea is not to keep them from it; but we also hope that we show them enough of other things.


“Maddox seems very interested in music and literature. I could go on and on. But I have six kids so you would have to wait. Some are funnier than others; some are more serious than others. They are all very different personalities. That’s part of how we want to raise them—to be proud of who they were when they were born. We make sure we don’t get in the way of that. We guide them, but we also let them be who they are.”

The stunning mom said she was delighted to be in a Disney movie because of the studio’s rich tradition in storytelling. “I tell my kids stories every night before bed. I am always doing different voices and things so I love that as an entertainer. Nothing gives me more pleasure than entertaining children. The way children respond to film is magical. And to make them laugh…I haven’t done many films like that.

“I don’t know if I would be very good at it. I never thought of myself as being Disney or funny. But I always wanted to do this kind of films. I was excited to get this opportunity.”

Robert Stromberg, Oscar-winning production designer, makes his feature directorial debut here, with a cast that includes Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley and Imelda Staunton.

“I love the film’s message,” Angelina said. “When I first read the script, I pulled the kids aside and I said, ‘I have a secret to tell you. You know Maleficent? Well, there’s something you don’t know.’ I told them the story and they were really engaged.

Maleficent’s voice

“When I decided to do the movie, I had to come up with her voice. I was giving [my kids] a bath and I kept trying voices (to use as Maleficent). Some they didn’t like; some they did. When I did a voice that made them laugh, that was the voice I used for the movie. So in the christening scene, when Pax and Zahara were there, I was more playful. I thought about them. I wanted to make them happy and laugh. It was really nice to make a movie where it was just about entertaining and being generous as an artist and not being so self-conscious—just giving.”

And how did the kids like the movie? “They love it,” she enthused. “They think it’s cool and really fun. Knox wants to be Diaval.”

She added, “It was interesting. They were asking me questions about fairies, and good and bad. Knox thinks I can turn birds into people. He sees birds outside and he goes, ‘Mommy, there’s a bird—go get the bird.’ It meant something to them. They connected to me in an emotional way. It’s different for my children, of course, because I am their mother. They see me get hurt and it bothers them differently than it does other children.

“But the story made them feel good. Hopefully, it taught them that everything is not so black-and-white, and people can go to this dark place. But what is beautiful is that if you can grow beyond it, you can find love, openness and happiness.”

On her travels as a UN ambassador and if she brings the kids, Angelina answered, “I usually try to bring them with me. I have brought Pax to Jordan. I hope to bring them even more into the world. But when I can’t bring them—to Afghanistan, for example, and many other UN trips, they always look up the places with their teachers, [discuss] where mommy is, what is happening in the world, why mommy is helping people.

“They often give me things to bring to other children. They give me their tooth fairy money. I try to make them aware of the difficult parts of the world where people are challenged but where they are also the great survivors, and also parts of the world that are just wonderful adventures and about the beautiful histories of many countries.”

Does she plan to have more kids? “I don’t at the moment,” she replied. “I love children and I always want more but you want to make sure that the ones you have are getting enough of your attention. I come home from work and spend the entire evening doing the rounds, sitting with each one of them and asking how their day was, what they are thinking or feeling, playing a game with them—that can take the bulk of the evening, and it’s important.

“Because we home-school, we can schedule. School is at 8:30. We get up at 7:30 and make breakfast. Then we walk them over to school. Then I go to work. Then we meet back at home. Dinner is at 6:30.

“No matter what, we always try to get back home. Some of the kids do work in my office. Now, Maddox is volunteering to do work in my office. So he comes over. They all find reasons to go where mommy works. Sometimes they all show up and I don’t quite understand what’s happening. It’s fun and there’s a great chaos. The nice thing is, because they are six, they kind of pair off most of the time. And they switch pairs. Pax and Shi are really into skateboarding. And Z and Vivi will play babies. Everybody has their teammate, so in many ways they are raising each other.

On whether she and Brad are planning to wed, based on her comment in a magazine interview that, if the kids had their way with their parents’ wedding, it would be Disney- or paintball-themed, Angelina remarked, “We cannot confirm. We really have no plans.”

Angelina’s answer to the question of when she experienced true love was quite moving: “I have never been quite romantic about it. I never believed in it until I had children. The moment I looked into Maddox’s eyes in the orphanage, my entire world changed. That was the first time I experienced it.

“It’s that moment when you are not the center of your world anymore. You give of yourself to that other person—for his happiness and safety. You are actually happier focusing on their lives and you just love them so much. You live for them. Almost every parent feels that way.”

Son’s girlfriend

Of Maddox becoming a teenager, Angelina was only too aware. “Yes, we will start to hit those,” she said. “Absolutely. He’s got a girlfriend.”

As far as her health is concerned, Angelina, who opted for a double mastectomy because she was in a high-risk category (her mother died of breast cancer), said, “I am doing great. I am very happy I made the decisions I made. I was very happy that I had ‘Unbroken’ to work on because he (Louis Zamperini) is so inspiring to me. He actually helped me through that time. I was able to just go to work and feel useful and functioning, which is what I think most people need to feel healthy and happy.

“The decision I made to go public was one that I felt was a duty to other women. I had learned some things about my health. I felt I had to express what I had learned and the choices that I had made.

“I wish that my mother had made the [same] choice when she was younger. She might have stayed alive; she might still be with me today. So it was a very direct choice of me speaking about health to other women, and with fathers and husbands—it was also very nice to connect with people on such a different level. We connect with art and issues and that’s wonderful. But to connect on these things that we are all dealing with—we have close friends who have lost family to cancer—it meant a lot to me to connect in that way. I feel very grateful for all the support that I had.”

On how the kids bond and how their presence deepens her relationship with Brad, Angelina, explained, “The boys do have a strong bond. And mommy and sons have a strong bond. We joke about the girls and daddy. It’s like the daughters can do no wrong. Z can ask Brad for anything and he will just crumble. He loves her so much. But the boys have their boy thing. They have their boy time—their learning-to-be-men time.

“One of the things that we think is most important is the way we treat each other in front of our children—that teaches them so much. The way Brad treats me, the way he takes care of me, and makes something special on Mother’s Day with all the kids and gets them all up to do something—he is teaching them to respect women and respect their mother and the girls.”

She continued, “The girls are showing an example of how they expect to be treated. I hope to do the same for the boys, in how I treat their father in front of them. We, of course, have grown. It’s been many years now. We have six children and, every day, our life is centered around our family. We have history now. It’s one thing when you first come together and it’s exciting. But after years, you have history and that really changes—it’s a different kind of love. It’s more a family love. It’s not just being lovers, partners and friends; it’s being family.”

(E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com. Follow him at http://twitter.com/



.

Angelina Jolie And Brad Pitt Teaming On New Project She Wrote

usatoday

Best News Ever: Brad and Angie to make a movie together

By Ann Oldenburg May 5, 2014 8:38 am

We’ll drink to this!

 Giphy.com

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are in talks to star in a new movie, reports Deadline.com. Details are scarce. All we know is that the project is an original film written by Jolie.
This will be the first time the two have shared the screen since 2005′s Mr. and Mrs Smith. And we’ll be happy to see the two in action – together – like this …

Stephen Vaugh, Twentieth Century Fox

or like this …

Jurgen Vollmer, 20th Century Fox

but most of all like this …

Stephen Vaughan, 20th Century Fox

collider

by Brendan Bettinger 

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt kicked off their run as Hollywood’s premier power couple about a decade ago after filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith.  They have not appeared in a feature together since 2005, but that could change soon.  Deadline reports Jolie and Pitt are in early talks to star in an untitled project based on an original script by Jolie.  That is all we know about the project as of this writing.  I expect the couple will try to leverage their massive joint marketing appeal to finance an otherwise difficult project as opposed to, say, Mr. and Mrs. Smith 2.
Independently, Pitt will next be seen in the World War II drama Fury (November 14).  Jolie directed her own WWII drama,
Read more at collider




photos dailymail

nydailynews

refinery29

deadline

Angelina Jolie And Brad Pitt Teaming On New Project She Wrote

By MIKE FLEMING JR | Friday May 2, 2014 @ 3:50pm PDT

EXCLUSIVE: Here is a film that instantly becomes the one every studio will want on their slate. Angelina Jolie is in early talks to star with Brad Pitt in an original script that she has written. It’s in the early talking stages and nothing is solidified but I hear it’s happening. I don’t know a lot more at this point.

The film hasn’t locked distribution, but it will team Jolie and Pitt together for the first time since Mr. And Mrs. Smith. That film displayed an intense chemistry onscreen, and this was before they became a couple offscreen. Jolie is working on post-production on Unbroken, the adaptation she directed of the Laura Hillenbrand book. Universal has set a December 25 release for the harrowing survival tale of Olympic track prodigy-turned WWII POW Lou Zamperini. It’s expected to be right in the Oscar mix. Unbroken was a hotly contested directing project, and Jolie won the job with a presentation that wowed the studio, where Donna Langley was also very impressed with her directorial debut, In The Land Of Blood And Honey. She next stars in the May 30 release of Disney’s Maleficent, with Jolie playing the title character in the revisionist version of the fairy tale.

Will reveal more when I know it. Pitt is coming off 12 Years A Slave, and most recently wrapped the David Ayer-directed WWII tank movie Fury, which QED produced and which Sony is releasing. Stay tuned. UTA is in the middle of this for Jolie, and CAA and Brillstein Entertainment for Pitt.

#AngelinaJolie And #BradPitt Teaming On New Project She Wrote http://t.co/Yw2YLo795w
— Michael Fleming (@DeadlineMike) May 2, 2014

Exclusive new details on the new film that Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie will be starring in together!!! http://t.co/KQ3eIBmPlb
— JustJared.com (@JustJared) May 2, 2014

JustJared.com can confirm that Angie wrote the original script. “The film is set in Europe,” our sources exclusively reveal to us. “It’s such an exciting new venture. People will not want to miss it!”



Hitfix

Angelina Jolie to team up with Brad Pitt on her next directorial venture 

The power couple prepare their first onscreen collaboration since 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith'

By Guy Lodge   Saturday, May 3, 2014 1:31 PM

When Angelina Jolie made her directorial debut in 2011 with the Bosnian War romance "In the Land of Blood and Honey," reviews were middling to respectable, though the film was still dismissed by many critics as a sort of noble vanity project. (The Golden Globe voters didn't help it much by handing it a shamelessly celebrity-courting Best Foreign Language Film nod.) But Jolie -- as in pretty much all her ventures -- is proving herself to be pretty serious about her directing career.

Later this year, she'll deliver the Christmastime WWII biopic "Unbroken": scripted by the Coen Brothers, starring red-hot up-and-comer Jack O'Connell, and presently being touted as a major Oscar prospect for Universal Pictures. And whether that pans out or not, she's already got a third directorial venture in the works: Deadline reports that she's in talks to film an original screenplay she's written herself, with an eye to star in it opposite partner in crime Brad Pitt.

No other details are available at this stage -- and no distributor has been set -- but this promises to be a pretty big deal. Jolie and Pitt may be the premier celebrity power couple of the day -- a sort of less tempestuous Taylor-and-Burton pairing -- but haven't collaborated on screen since the project that united them in the first place, 2005's action comedy "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." If "Unbroken" makes a legit filmmaker of Jolie, that'll only heighten the stakes. Pitt, of course, now has an Oscar for behind-the-camera work, having co-produced "12 Years a Slave"; I'm sure they'd like matching ones eventually.

Read the original post at Hitfix






THR

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie Teaming Up for Mystery Movie Project

4:47 PM PDT 5/2/2014 by Borys Kit

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie may be teaming up on a movie project with a script written by Jolie.

Sources have confirmed the two have agreed to team up on the project, which would, if and when it got made, be the first time the two have shared the screen since 2005's Mr. and Mrs Smith.

No information is being given on the project, although some insiders speculate it could be a relationship drama that Jolie wrote several years ago. The project centered on a couple with issues who take a vacation in a last ditch effort to save their marriage.

It is not known if there is a director on board or if Jolie would direct it. (Jolie is in post right now Unbroken, the true World War Two tale of Lou Zamperini that she directed for Universal) It is also not known who is producing.

The couple is known for having a rule where they don't work on movies at the same time so one of them can remain with their brood. Having the duo together on a movie would be a nice way to bypass that tenet.




EW

• They sizzled in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and now Hollywood’s most famous couple may share the silver screen once more. Angelina Jolie is reportedly in early talks to star with Brad Pitt in a film that she wrote. According to Deadline, the film doesn’t have distribution yet. Very few details are currently available, but let’s take the opportunity to remember the time they did THIS.








variety

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have chosen to work on a film together for the first time in a decade, launching development on an untitled script that she has written.
It’s not yet clear who will act, produce or direct the project.



eonline

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Joining Forces for New Movie

by Bruna Nessif

Could this be another Mr. & Mrs. Smith in the making?!
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are reportedly teaming up for first time in nearly 10 years for a new film project. Details on the movie are still under wraps, but one thing that is known about the mystery film is that the script was written by Jolie.

E! News has reached out for comment.

The beautiful actress hinted that she and Pitt were thinking about reuniting on the big screen back in 2012. "We're talking about it," Jolie told E! News at the time. "We have an idea."

When asked if the idea is something along the lines of a romantic comedy, Jolie responded, "We don't know how funny we are," she smiled. "And you you never know what you want to see an actual couple do. Sometimes it's better if they're not a couple."

Angelina is currently working on post-production on Unbroken, the adaptation she directed for Universal based off the Laura Hillenbrand book of the true World War II tale of Lou Zamperini. Meanwhile, Brad recently wrapped the David Ayer-directed WWII tank movie Fury, and is slated to star as Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former commanding general of international and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, in the upcoming movie The Operators.

Deadline first reported the story.

Film biz bits

The Economist

Hollywood

Split screens

A tale of two Tinseltowns

Feb 23rd 2013 From the print edition

IN “ARGO”, a thriller set in 1979, a CIA agent played by Ben Affleck seeks the help of sharp-tongued Hollywood executives, and pretends to make a science-fiction film, in order to enter Iran and smuggle out six American diplomats who have been hiding in the Canadian embassy in Tehran. In the film, Hollywood helps liberate the trapped Americans. In real life, some are wondering whether Hollywood is the one in need of rescue. “Schizophrenic” is how one studio boss describes the state of Tinseltown.

The economics of the film industry are changing. Profits are down, even though Hollywood is making splashier films for new, fast-growing markets. Meanwhile, television, once the unglamorous sister, is enjoying record earnings and unprecedented critical acclaim. As a symbol of Tinseltown’s shifting power, Seth MacFarlane, a comedian best known for creating the TV series “Family Guy”, is hosting the Oscars on February 24th.

Hollywood executives have long been paranoid and insecure. Now they have cause to be. “The business model within film is broken,” says Amir Malin of Qualia Capital, a private-equity firm. Between 2007 and 2011, pre-tax profits of the five studios controlled by large media conglomerates (Disney, Universal, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros) fell by around 40%, says Benjamin Swinburne of Morgan Stanley. He reckons the studios account for less than 10% of their parent companies’ profits today, and by 2020 their share will decline to only around 5%. That is because the “big six” studios (the other is Sony Pictures, owned by the eponymous electronics maker) are growing more slowly than TV. In 2012 Time Warner grossed $12 billion from film, up 20% from 2002. That compares with a more than 84% rise in the company’s TV-network revenues during the period, to $14.2 billion.

Film and TV are very different businesses, though studios like Warner Bros and Fox do both. TV is relatively stable and currently lucrative. TV networks earn money from advertising and from the fees that cable and satellite operators pay to carry their programmes. These fees amount to some $32 billion a year in America, and are growing by about 7% annually. People love watching TV, and, per hour, it is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment.

In contrast, film revenues are volatile. Attendance swings like the moods of Claire Danes’s bipolar character, Carrie Mathison, in the TV show “Homeland”. In 2011 American cinemas sold 1.28 billion tickets, the smallest number since 1995. Last year, ticket sales rose back to 1.36 billion and box-office revenues to a record $10.8 billion, thanks to blockbusters like “The Avengers”. But film-going in America is not a growth business, especially now that people have so many media to distract them at home. The share of Americans who attend a cinema at least once a month declined from 30% in 2000 to 10% in 2011. Analysts expect revenue from American cinemas to be flat for the foreseeable future. Even people in Hollywood admit that America is a “mature” film market. That is no compliment in a town where ageing puts you out of work.
Hollywood’s movie studios are confronting three long-term problems: less lucrative home-entertainment divisions, the rising cost of making films and the terms they get in fast-growing new markets.

Although a movie’s box-office performance is usually what catches headlines, a studio depends on how that film performs later, when it is sold or rented to customers to watch at home. DVD sales peaked in 2004. Since then the sale of movies as VHS tapes, DVDs and Blu-ray discs (ie not downloads) has fallen around 36%, according to IHS Screen Digest. Rental kiosks, like Redbox, which offer cheap disc rentals, and video-streaming services, like Netflix, have exploded in popularity, but are not as lucrative as outright sales. “People are still watching the same amount of movies that they did a few years ago,” says Todd Juenger of Sanford C. Bernstein, a research firm. “They’re just spending $6 billion less a year to do it.”

Blockbusted?

Meanwhile, costs are rising. Everyone had expected technology to make it cheaper to produce films, but the opposite has happened, says Michael Lynton, the boss of Sony Pictures. A move from analogue to digital film enabled perfectionist directors to shoot more takes and touch them up afterward, using up expensive production and editing time. Studios have also started to make more “tent pole” films: big releases that can support the bottom line like a pole holds up a tent. These typically rely on expensive special effects, rather than compelling scripts, to attract a global audience. They often cost $200m to make and another $50m-100m to market.

When costly movies flop, the losses are scary. Disney took a $160m write-off after the failure of a single one, “John Carter”, a confusing space adventure. Studios used to be able to sell tickets and DVDs even for duds. Now social networks and fan sites ensure that bad reviews spread quickly, sinking a film’s reputation faster than a director can shout “cut”.

Hollywood executives have been trying to roll out the red carpet to emerging markets, where more middle-class movie-goers are being minted every day. One boss of a film-production company calls the international box office “the lifeboat on the Titanic”. Box-office revenues outside America are growing two and a half times as fast as they are domestically. China, the heartthrob of every studio executive, has overtaken Japan to become the world’s second-largest movie market. Studios’ business in China is “twice the size of what it was a year or two ago”, says Mr Lynton of Sony Pictures.

But even though studios are selling more tickets in emerging markets like Russia and China, they are taking home less money for their hits. In America the big studios keep around half of box-office receipts. In China Hollywood studios keep only a quarter. Moreover, no more than 34 foreign films may be released in China each year. (Last year, the big six studios released 134 films in total.) These countries also generate puny home-entertainment revenues, and this will not change for years. To compete with pirates in Russia one studio starts selling DVDs only a month after a movie’s release.

The hunger games

Squeezed between rising costs and falling revenues, the big studios have responded by trying to make more films they think will be hits: usually sequels, prequels, or anything featuring characters with name recognition. But, as William Goldman, a script writer, once wrote, “nobody knows anything”—ie, hits can’t be predicted. Independent filmmakers can still make money on surprise hits but these have limited markets abroad: American dramas and comedies tend not to perform as well overseas as cartoon and action flicks.

Between 2006 and 2012, the six big studios also cut the number of films they made by 14-54%, according to Nomura. And they started to pay actors and directors far less. Several years ago a big-name actor might receive $20m for a film, and be offered three every 18 months. Today he or she might receive $10m, and get cast in only one every 18 months. Some studios have also started to use first-time directors, because they cost less and it is easier to control their expenses. Talent agencies have felt the pain. Two big ones, William Morris and Endeavor, merged in 2009. “It’s taken time for people to understand that there’s less to go around,” says Brad Grey, the boss of Paramount. “Not only can we not pay the same amount to all the players, we can’t do the same number of projects.”

Television has taken up some of the slack. Budgets for the flashiest shows have risen: some episodes now cost $5m-6m an hour. That is much less than a feature film, but double the cost of many network shows. Scenes in HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” and “Game of Thrones” are as spectacular as any movie. Film stars like Dustin Hoffman and Jeff Daniels have gone over to TV because networks are throwing money at shows and giving actors and directors more creative licence. The difference in quality between television and film is much smaller than it used to be.

Executives have changed their tune about whether the digital companies that have muscled into Hollywood, such as Netflix, are demons or diamond-mines. “Netflix has been the best thing to happen to Hollywood in a long time,” says Chris Silbermann of ICM Partners, a talent agency. That is because it and other streaming services, such as Amazon’s Prime, are paying billions for the right to stream studios’ content to subscribers online. They are competing for rights with premium-cable channels, such as HBO and Showtime; this is probably pushing up prices. Netflix spent an estimated $4.8 billion buying streaming content in 2011-12. Studio bosses hope these services will expand globally.

But Netflix and other firms are changing the home-entertainment business profoundly—and studios are scrambling to keep up. Last year was the first in years that home-entertainment revenues did not decline (they were about flat, see chart). Now studios want to increase them. Their best bet is to beef up digital sales, which offer fat margins. Several are experimenting with “windowing” (making films available for a certain time in each format), and are releasing digital downloads weeks before films are available on DVD.
According to Mike Dunn of Fox, by 2015 Americans will have 861m internet-connected devices, such as games consoles, tablets, smartphones and laptops, up from 560m in 2012. That translates into every American owning 2.7 devices. Studios think they can make owning movies attractive again, if it is easier to watch them on all these gadgets. The big studios (with the exception of Disney) have got together for an initiative called “UltraViolet”, which allows people to store the rights to watch movies they buy in the cloud. But even boosters of the plan admit consumer behaviour has changed. In the future, more people may prefer to rent, not buy.

 

 

You want me to work as a…film executive?

So some want studios to go further and get rid of the theatrical window (when films are exclusively in cinemas) altogether. The idea is to let consumers watch movies at home for a higher price rather than trek to the cinema. Predictably, cinemas are not enthusiastic. Nor are most studios. “Movies are just too expensive for us to collapse the windows and effectively eliminate a separate source of revenue,” says Alan Horn, the head of Disney’s studio.

But some are flirting with it. Last year Lionsgate, an independent studio and distribution company, made “Arbitrage”, a thriller about a fiendish financier, available in theatres and on “video-on-demand” at the same time. Michael Burns, Lionsgate’s chairman, reckons it earned three times as much as it would have done otherwise, because it “found two different audiences”. But if one big studio did this, cinemas could fight back and refuse to show that studio’s movies. Few want to risk it. Poverty is awful. Have you seen “Les Misérables”?

From the print edition: Business

Film books

20 Books About Movies Every Film Lover Should Own

by Jason Bailey. Posted on 1:00 pm Thursday Sep 13, 2012

September is a very good month for books about film. Roger Ebert’s wonderful memoir Life Itself is out in paperback; J. Hoberman’s excellent survey of 21st century cinema culture, Film After Film, is available in hardback and on Kindles; and there’s an all-new edition of Leonard Maltin’s movie guide. It’s the kind of thick, information-packed reference that is getting rarer and rarer in the IMDb age, but as Maltin notes on his Indiewire blog, “To those who think it’s been supplanted by the Internet I can only say, ‘We’re still here.’ And as someone who uses the ‘net every day, I can tell you that my colleagues and I still face surprising hurdles trying to get reliable information about brand-new movies. That’s one reason I think our book still has relevance to anyone who cares about accuracy, useful information, and of course, reviews.”
He’s right; the Maltin book is indispensible, and not just for those of us playing the home version of the “Leonard Maltin game” on Doug Loves Movies. Its newest iteration, and the embarrassment of other riches this month, got us thinking about the essential books about film; we’ve put together our suggested library after the jump, but feel free to add your own must-haves in the comments.

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomson
Thompson’s big, bulky, fiercely opinionated tome is the definitive movie reference book, even if his tastes run mighty persnickety (I just randomly opened to a page in the middle and found this comment, re Paul Newman: “I am skeptical of such blue-eyed likability”). But it is a thorough, comprehensive work, the result of a lifetime of viewing and understanding cinema, and the skill with which he combines filmography and criticism is astonishing.
IDEAL COMPANION: The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris is less exhaustive but no less fascinating, finding the chief American booster of the auteur theory ranking and contrasting American filmmakers from the beginning of the sound era through its publication in 1968.

Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris
Harris is one of the most insightful film writers working today (few think pieces get at the inherent trouble with movies today like his brilliant Esquire essay “The Day the Movies Died”). His first book examines the birth of the “New Hollywood” movement in a rather ingenious fashion: by simultaneously profiling the five films nominated for the Oscar as 1967′s Best Picture. Two were rabble-rousing films from young and inventive directors (The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde), two were “social change” pictures from the old guard (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and In The Heat of the Night), and one was a big, bloated musical extravaganza that exemplified all that was wrong with studio production (Dr. Doolittle). In his cinematic “intercutting” of their five stories, he paints a full and riveting picture of modern movies’ turning point.
IDEAL COMPANION: J. Hoberman’s brainy The Dream Life deals with the same period within a wider scope, taking a broad view of the Sixties and (partially) the Seventies, but drawing clear lines between the movies and the historical, cultural, and social moments that shaped them — and vice versa.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind
Biskind’s account of “how the sex-drugs-and rock ‘n’ roll generation saved Hollywood” is a dishy treat, equal parts appreciation and gossip, filled with fascinating stories of that brief period when Hollywood handed the keys to the kingdom over to a bunch of passionate neophytes. Endlessly informative and compulsively readable.
IDEAL COMPANION: The Movie Brats by Michael Pye and Lynda Myles is a little harder to come by — it’s out of print, having been written roughly contemporaneous to the events in question. But it’s worth tracking down: by profiling the six of the key auteurs of the era (Coppola, Lucas, DePalma, Milius, Scorsese, and Spielberg) in their prime, Pye and Myles capture something of their infectious passion and love for the cinema.

The Other Hollywood by Legs McNeil and Jennifer Osborne
This “uncensored oral history of the porn film industry” (heh heh) makes for a fascinating mirror to the Biskind and Pye/Myles volumes — here, too, was an industry that came of age in the early 1970s, only to see its “golden age” fall to commercialism in the go-go eighties. Colorful, smart, and laugh-out-loud funny, The Other Hollywood is also a must-read for Boogie Nights fans (play spot-that-inspiration!), and its riveting tale of the MIPORN operation, in which two FBI agents went undercover as porn producers and found it more seductive than they’d anticipated, is a Boogie Nights/Donnie Brasco combination movie just waiting to happen. Bonus: Co-author McNeil was also behind the essential punk rock oral history Please Kill Me.
IDEAL COMPANION: For another alternative history of seventies cinema, check out Jason Zinoman’s Shock Value, which looks at the less reputable but no less innovative filmmakers (Carpenter, Craven, Hooper, et al) who made exploitation horror into an art form.

Spike, Mike, Slackers, & Dykes by John Pierson
John Pierson was at the forefront of the next truly exciting moment in indie cinema, the indie movement of the late eighties and early nineties, serving as a “producer’s rep” (getting unknown pictures in front of people who could make them known) for such films as She’s Gotta Have It, The Thin Blue Line, Roger & Me, Slacker, and Clerks. That film’s director, Kevin Smith, serves as a kind of Greek chorus for the book, popping up every couple of chapters for entertaining conversational interludes with Pierson, whose reader-friendly business sense and evocative storytelling creates a you-are-there portrait of an exciting, seemingly anything-goes period.
IDEAL COMPANION: Sharon Waxman’s Rebels on the Backlot relies more on second-person accounts, and has thus been disputed in some quarters, but it’s an awfully good read anyway. She focuses, Movie Brats-style, on six key filmmakers of the indie-to-studio migration (Tarantino, Soderbergh, Fincher, PT Anderson, David O. Russell, and Spike Jonze), masterfully capturing that movement’s combination of art and commerce. And the stories about Russell’s legendary clashes with George Clooney are not to be missed.

For Keeps by Pauline Kael
No writer did more to elevate the consideration of movies as art — and to make that consideration an art form itself — than the great Pauline Kael, who spent twenty-plus years at The New Yorker redrawing the boundaries of film criticism. This doorstop volume (1200-plus pages) collects all of the essentials, and a good many treats besides: her verbose and brilliant take on Bonnie and Clyde, her hyperbolic yet persuasive praise of Last Tango in Paris, her fascinatingly nuanced struggle with Straw Dogs, the entirety of her controversial Citizen Kane appreciation, and “Trash, Art, and the Movies,” which may well be the single greatest piece of film writing ever, period.
ALTERNATE OPTION: For Keeps is long out of print, and a bit of a hassle to lug around, so there’s something to be said for last year’s The Age of Movies: Selected Writings. It’s not as comprehensive, but all of the must-haves are there — and, bonus, it’s available in e-book form, for those of us who always want to have some Kael at our fingertips.

Awake in the Dark by Roger Ebert
Ebert is the most renowned film critic of the post-Kael era: enthusiastic yet tough, eloquent yet approachable, knowledgeable without showing off. This 2006 collection assembles dozens of his finest reviews, along with a number of terrific think pieces (his case for a Pulitzer Prize for film is awfully compelling) and his terrific early profiles of legends like Robert Mitchum and Lee Marvin.
IDEAL COMPANION: Ebert showed his skills as a curator match his as a critic with Roger Ebert’s Book of Film, a marvelous 1997 collection of his favorite film writing (both fiction and non), featuring everyone from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Susan Sontag to Tom Wolfe to Elmore Leonard to Louise Brooks to Leo Tolstoy.

From Reverence to Rape by Molly Haskell
Haskell’s unflinching and unforgiving examination of the female image onscreen was first published in 1974, and it has only grown more accurate and disturbing in the years since, which haven’t exactly been a watermark era for women in film. Haskell’s close-reading is tough and analytical, but it’s not off-putting either. She does what the best cultural writers do: she makes you see the world through her prism, both as you read and long after you’ve put the book down.
IDEAL COMPANION: Once you’re in that kind of analytical mind-frame, you might be ready to tackle Robert Kokler’s dense A Cinema of Loneliness, which examines the films of Arthur Penn, Oliver Stone, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Robert Altman, but with a heavy emphasis on the social changes and political conditions within which those works were created.

The Jaws Log by Carl Gottlieb
Spielberg’s 1974 Jaws shoot was one of the most notoriously difficult productions up to that time, which is why this first person account by Carl Gottlieb (who co-wrote the screenplay, and co-starred as Mayor Vaughn’s right-hand man) is so valuable. It’s also fast and funny — Gottlieb’s roots were in improv comedy — and captures the tribulations and irritations of location shooting as few other volumes have.
IDEAL COMPANION: Long before “behind the scenes” pieces were de rigueur, Lillian Ross chronicled the making of John Huston’s Red Badge of Courage — first in a series of New Yorker pieces, then the book Picture, which collected and expanded them. Candid and fascinating, it offers up proof positive that the struggle between art and commerce has some mighty deep roots.

Making Movies by Sidney Lumet
Still, there’s nothing like getting a director’s take on the process of filmmaking — and no one has put it to the page with more warmth and wisdom than the late, great Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon, Network, 12 Angry Men), whose wonderfully conversational guidebook strolls leisurely through development, technique, editing, and working with actors. His affection for the craft emanates from every page, and the story of how he got that incredible performance out of Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon’s telephone will-dictation scene is worth the cover price alone.
IDEAL COMPANION: The story of how Robert Rodriguez became a Hollywood player on the basis of a $7,000 Spanish shoot-’em-up became indie legend, and he tells it with crackling energy and unflagging enthusiasm in Rebel Without a Crew, which combines his production diary (including the time he spent as a “human lab rat” to raise funds), a written version of his “ten minute film school,” and the film’s annotated screenplay.

Film Thoughts

It appears we can scratch off the Luc Besson action film based on what she told Tony Breznican.  She gave pretty much the same answer years ago when Josh Horowitz asked her if she was doing Serena with Darren Aronofsky.  She may be keeping her action film slate clear for Salt 2 even if she sent them back to the drawing board.  It makes sense, she's invested in that franchise already.  Then again Besson could conceivably rewrite and direct Salt 2 himself since it's right in his wheelhouse.

Maleficent wraps in September and Brad could end up doing The Gray Man in the last quarter of the year...unless of course Fincher is free and Cleopatra is ready to go.


Peter Phan ‏ @Peterphanlabel

Just ran into Angelina Jolie at L'emitage hotel in beverly hill while in my PR meeting.

Angelina Jolie Talks Story Elements & Wearing Horns for 'Maleficent'

by Ben Pearson
March 26, 2012

Actress Angelina Jolie took some time away from the spotlight to film her directorial debut, 2011's In the Land of Blood and Honey. Now she's preparing to get back in front of the camera again, starring in Disney's Maleficent, the alternate take on the Sleeping Beauty sorceress. Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, and Oz, The Great and Powerful production designer Robert Stromberg is making his directorial debut on this one, and with the June start date quickly approaching, Jolie recently had a chat with Entertainment Weekly about the script, the influence the film will have on young girls, and wearing those iconic horns. Read on!
When asked if there will be any redeeming qualities to the character of Maleficent, Jolie had this to say:

"It sounds really crazy to say that there will be something that’s good for young girls in this, because it sounds like you’re saying they should be a villain. [Maleficent] is actually a great person, but she’s not perfect. She’s far from perfect. In general, it’s a very good message to say, 'let’s look at something from the other side.' But then also, what our challenge will be — and the script writer [Linda Woolverton] has already cracked it — is not to simplify it, not to just reverse the story but tell a bigger story that doesn’t point the finger [at Princess Aurora] either. It doesn’t flip it."

Earlier this month, it was reported that Super 8 star Elle Fanning landed the part of Princess Aurora, and I'm glad to hear that the story is more than just a simple reversal of perspective intended to paint Aurora in a bad light. Jolie also mentioned the iconic look of the character, revealing that even though the project starts filming soon, they're still working on perfecting the character design:

"I’ve already got my horns fitted. My kids are very happy. We’re still figuring out the look. We’re experimenting with different things. But the horns are the horns – you can’t deny them. You have to have horns."

I've gotta admit, even though this movie is probably going to be aimed at people far younger than my demographic, I'm kind of excited to see Jolie with those horns attached to her head. It's perfect casting, and it sounds like she's going to bring a real humanity to that character that we haven't seen before.

Angelina Jolie says Maleficent is a great person, just misunderstood

by: Alex Maidy Mar. 26, 2012

Angelina Jolie begins filming Disney's reimagining of Sleeping Beauty, MALEFICENT, in June. Jolie will be portraying the iconic evil queen and recently confirmed that at least one part of the traditional version of the character will remain.
"We’re still figuring out the look. We’re experimenting with different things. But the horns are the horns — you can’t deny them. You have to have horns."
Jolie also goes on to say that the film will not be "anti-princess" but will broaden the story to show there was more to the characters than the animated film told.
With the glut of reimaginings lately, we are getting more sympathetic portrayals of villainous characters.  The recent Snow White face-off shows a more comical evil queen (MIRROR MIRROR) versus a purely evil witch (SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN).  What version will we get with MALEFICENT?
We know one thing for sure, she is going to be a sexy evil queen.

Angelina Jolie Confirms 'Sleeping Beauty' Reboot 'Maleficent' Is Next, Starts Shooting in June

News by Drew Taylor | March 27, 2012 12:00 PM | 

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly on the eve of her directorial debut "In the Land of Blood and Honey" hitting home video, Angelina Jolie confirmed that her next feature will be the "Sleeping Beauty" retelling "Maleficent." "The next thing I’m doing is 'Maleficent' for Disney. I start it in June, and it’s a really great script," Jolie told the site. "I’m having a lot of fun. I’ve already got my horns fitted. My kids are very happy."

"Maleficent," of course, a retelling of Disney's animated "Sleeping Beauty" but told from the point of view of the wicked witch (with her horns, purple cloak and sataff, she is one of the more famous character designs from that period). The film was initially developed by "The Incredibles"/"Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol" director Brad Bird back in 2009. A year later, Tim Burton was loosely attached to direct after the success of his similar "Alice in Wonderland" (both "Alice in Wonderland" and "Maleficent" were written by "The Lion King" co-writer Linda Woolverton). When Burton passed, it was seen as a possible directing vehicle for David Yates, who had helmed the last few 'Harry Potter' films, before Disney decided on a relative unknown – "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland" production designer Robert Stromberg.

Jolie described the project to EW as, "Not anti-princess, but it’s the first time they’re looking at this epic woman." When asked about seeing the "Sleeping Beauty" story from the villain's perspective, Jolie said, "In general, it’s a very good message to say, 'Let’s look at something from the other side.'" She added: "But then also, what our challenge will be — and the script writer [Linda Woolverton] has already cracked it — is not to simplify it, not to just reverse the story but tell a bigger story that doesn’t point the finger [at Princess Aurora, a part which "Super 8" star Elle Fanning is in talks for] either. It doesn’t flip it."

She described the with as, "A woman who is capable of being many things, and just because she protects herself and is aggressive, it doesn’t mean she can’t have other [warmer] qualities" and "actually a great person." Still, Jolie was quick to point out, "But she’s not perfect. She’s far from perfect."

One thing we do wonder about is how closely Jolie's Maleficent will resemble her animated alter ego. The character has appeared in several episodes of ABC's smash hit fairy-tales-in-real-life series "Once Upon a Time" (in part, it seems, to stoke the synergistic fires until "Maleficent" big screen debut). That version has the staff and is draped in shades of purple but isn't nearly as striking as we're sure Jolie's will end up being.

Jolie says her look is still in flux but one thing is for sure. "We’re still figuring out the look. We’re experimenting with different things," Jolie told EW. "But the horns are the horns — you can’t deny them. You have to have horns." "Maleficent" hasn't yet been given a release date, but five will get you ten that the film follows in the path of Disney's "Alice in Wonderland," "John Carter" and next year's "Oz The Great and Powerful" with a March 2014 slot.

 

It's so good being bad! Angelina Jolie swears her kids are happy that she's playing movie villain Maleficent

By Laura Schreffler
PUBLISHED: 20:55 EST, 26 March 2012 | UPDATED: 10:35 EST, 27 March 2012 

She's been called many things, but 'evil' is not usually an epithet attached to do-gooder Angelina Jolie's name.
Yet, the Oscar winner is playing one of the most iconic villains in movie history when she takes on the role of Disney's Maleficent, and she says her children couldn't be happier about it.
The 36-year-old told Entertainment Weekly: 'It's a really great script. I'm having a lot of fun.

So good at being bad: Angelina Jolie says her kids are happy about evil new film role

'I've already got my horns fitted. My kids are very happy.'
The U.N. Goodwill Ambassador says she isn't turning her kids to the dark side: she wants them to see Sleeping Beauty's resident villain as a multi-faceted, strong individual.

She says: 'It's not anti-princess, but it's the first time they're looking at this epic woman (in a different way).

Loving evil mother: Angelina's six kids reportedly love her new character

'I hope in the end you see a woman who is capable of being many things, and just because she protects herself and is aggressive, it doesn't mean she can't have other (warmer) qualities.
'You have to figure out the puzzle of what she is. It sounds really crazy to say that there will be something that's good for young girls in this, because it sounds like you're saying they should be a villain.
'(Maleficent) is actually a great person. But she's not perfect. She's far from perfect.'
The brunette beauty is in pre-production for the film, which begins shooting in June.

The dark lady: The 36-year-old actress will play Sleeping Beauty villain Maleficent

In addition to the horns children Maddox, 10, Pax, eight, Zahara, seven, Shiloh, five, and twins Vivienne and Knox, three, adore, she's been working with the costume department to make additional tweaks to her character's clothing.

She reveals: 'We're experimenting with different things. But the horns are the horns -- you can't deny them. You have to have horns.'
There is no word - yet - as to what partner Brad Pitt thinks of her bad girl new look.

Elle Fanning has reportedly been cast opposite Jolie as protagonist Princess Aurora.

Witchy woman: The Oscar winner looks perfectly good playing bad