Maleficent is now in theaters, and one of its most controversial elements is how much it deviates from the 1959 Sleeping Beauty. Here we discuss some of the differences.
For those of you who wish to see Maleficent spoiler-free, know that this article will contain many spoilers from the movie.
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Related: Everything you need to know about Sleeping Beauty
Maleficent has premiered to less than stellar reviews. As we highlighted above, the film deviates from the 1959 Sleeping Beauty. In our review of the film, we cited this as one of the film’s major issues. “The narration is relentless in assuring you that this is the exact same story,” we said. With all the changes that we noticed, Maleficent clearly is not the same story as Sleeping Beauty.
Even though Maleficent doesn’t look to be a huge critical success, it appears that it will be much more financially successful. Box office predictors have it taking the weekend box office over X-Men: Days of Future Past in its second week and other new release of the week, Seth MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the West. Box office predictors are not yet sure just how much money Maleficent will bring in. Numbers have ranged from $55 million (Box office Mojo) to $63-70 million (Deadline) to above $70 million (Variety).
An above $70 million opening weekend would be a good start for Maleficent, but there would still be a long way to go to reach the film’s expensive $180 million budget. If the A Cinemascore is any indication, it appears that the film will carry good word of mouth despite what the critics are saying about the movie. Disney will be banking on this, but it appears they had faith in its ability to do so. Maleficent was Robert Stromberg’s first directorial job, and no one has ever had a larger budget for a debut movie.