Joachim Ronning is in talks to direct ‘Maleficent 2’.
The 45-year-old filmmaker helmed ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’ this year and Deadline report Ronning is set to work with Angelina Jolie in the highly anticipated sequel to the 2014 Disney live action movie about the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ villain.
Although not much else is known about the upcoming sequel, Disney revealed they have hired ‘Spectre’ co-writer Jez Butterworth to rewrite the screenplay for the film.
Linda Woolverton had penned the original draft, but her effort is set to be reworked by Butterworth, who will be under pressure to deliver a commercial hit following the success of the original movie.
When the sequel was first announced, Jolie, 42, was unsure whether she would return as the iconic Disney villain, but at the Telluride Film Festival she confirmed she was returning.
She said: "We have been working on the script and this is going to be a really strong sequel."
Jolie relished playing Maleficent, the antagonist in Walt Disney’s classic 1959 animation ‘Sleeping Beauty’, because she was obsessed with that movie when she was a child.
She previously said: "It is really funny when people say you’d be obvious for a great villain. She was just my favourite as a little girl. I was terrified of her but I was really drawn to her. I loved her. There were some discussions about it before I got the part, and I got a phone call from my brother who said, ‘You got to get your name on the list for this!’"
The first ‘Maleficent’ film also starred Elle Fanning as Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty, Brenton Thwaites as Prince Phillip and Sharlto Copley as King Stefan.
Joachim Ronning set to direct Maleficent 2
