If Harry Knowles at AICN is to be believed, Tim Burton isn't done playing around in the Disney playground just yet. While he's still putting the finishing touches on Alice in Wonderland, Burton is now said to be interested in tweaking Sleeping Beauty in a very Wicked-esque way. If you were one of the lucky ones to catch Wicked on Broadway, then you know that it tells the story of The Wizard of Oz from the point of view of the witches. Well, that's exactly what Burton supposedly wants to do with Sleeping Beauty – to tell the story from the point of view of one of Disney's greatest villains: Maleficent.
AICN describes the potential project as being in "a quasi Live Actiony kinda way", which means it'll be in line with the kind of stuff Burton is doing with Alice in Wonderland – where some characters are live action and others are motion-capture. One assumes the entire thing would also be in 3D, and as of now it'll be called simply Maleficent.
Burton was supposed to re-team with Johnny Depp on Dark Shadows next, though AICN claims that film may be falling apart – which is probably why we're hearing these Sleeping Beauty rumors. Is Burton quietly lining up Maleficent as we speak? As far as my opinion on the whole thing goes, I'm part of the camp that really wants to see Burton get back to making more original films like Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. I'm just worried that if he backs himself into a mo-cap, Disney-fied corner, the guy will be re-inventing Disney classics for the rest of his career. Do we really want to see that?
Sound off below on what you think of the project…
