Maleficent, Disney's "postmodern" reworking of Sleeping Beauty, is gathering speed with rumours stemming from the LA Times placing Angelina Jolie in the pointy cowl of the titular evil queen with the dragony propensities.
Tim Burton reportedly had his eye on the project back in January, and just a few days ago it was confirmed that Alice in Wonderland's Linda Woolverton is hard at work on the Maleficent script, which puts the queen centre stage and tells the familiar story from her unfamiliar point of view. Not unlike Oz musical Wicked, we guess. Except it's not sounding as if songs about Defying Gravity are part of the deal.
No contracts have been signed yet, and it might be that Jolie's involvement is dependent on Burton's. A kids' movie would be interesting (more or less) new territory for her though, and her post-Tourist diary is a bit empty...
Burton, meanwhile, seems likely to be working on Dark Shadows and The Addams Family in the immediate future, and would presumably not want to jump straight into another project that on paper is not entirely dissimilar to Alice. If he ends up just producing, or not involved at all, which directors do you think would be a good fit for the material?