‘Maleficent’ becomes Angelina Jolie’s highest grossing movie at half a billion dollars
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- Published on Wednesday, 30 November -0001 00:00
- Written by NY Daily News
The fairytale flick has a storybook ending for the actress, passing the $500 million box office milestone worldwide to pass her previous best, 2005’s ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith.’ Angelina Jolie's "Maleficent" held its spell on moviegoers last weekend, flying past the $500 million mark to set a new record for the actress.The fairytale flick — a live-action blockbuster that reimagines Disney's "Sleeping Beauty" from the sorceress' point of view — earned another $13 million during its fourth week in U.S. theaters to top $520 million in worldwide box office sales.Jolie's previous best was the 2005 movie "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," which took in $478.2 million and co-starred her fiancé, Brad Pitt."Maleficent" was a passion project for Jolie, 39, who said she was ready to try something big and "bold" that her six kids — Maddox, 12, Pax, 10, Zahara, 9, Shiloh, 8, Knox, 5, and Vivienne, 5 — could watch and enjoy. "I wanted to have fun and explore different art and performance in a way I hadn't done," she said at a press event last month.
Jolie said she was profoundly "moved" by the script by "The Lion King" writer Linda Woolverton, which turns the title character Maleficient into a powerful heroine who bonds with a gutsy Aurora and rescues her in a surprising twist."I actually got really emotional when I finished it, and I thought it was one of the best scripts I'd read in a long time because of the issues it dealt with. And I thought it was in fact an important story to tell," she said. The gorgeous, globe-trotting humanitarian said she wasn't even sure she wanted to return to acting after her directorial debut with "In the Land of Blood and Honey" in 2011.She said "Maleficent" captured her imagination because it "wasn't anything normal.""It was such a crazy idea, and I was so challenged by it. And my kids are now all watching all these movies and wanting to play with mommy, and it was perfect timing to have them all on set, playing, being a part of the adventure with me, and for me as an actress, to not do something where I'm taking myself so seriously," she said.
"The artist in me felt it's good to do something bold every once in a while, that you're not comfortable with, haven't done. And I was a bit nervous to take her on. I just thought, you know, I don't have a big theater voice. I don't do things that are kind of comedic. This is such a crazy idea. I'm a fairy!" she said.She said it was indeed a family affair, with her youngest daughter playing Aurora."She was good. The first day was the day she had to catch the butterfly, and she just really didn't feel like doing it. So, I actually was holding the pole with the ball on the end, bouncing up and down and kind of dancing, trying to make her laugh. And daddy (Pitt) was on the edge of the cliff she had to jump off, kind of like making faces and doing all this stuff," Jolie recalled with a laugh. "She eventually did it, but she was taking her sweet time, and not wanting to do it twice, certainly," she recalled, referring to Vivienne."Then when we got to our scene, we kind of practiced it a little bit at home," Jolie said. "I'd say like, 'Okay, I'm gonna say go away, and you try to, you know, get back.' So by the time we did that one, we did it together, we had a good time, we played together. I was actually shocked that she was doing so well. You know, inside I thought, 'Ohhh, she went back and hit her mark.' That's frightening."
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