Fans of Disney fairy tale movies should be extremely excited — the House of Mouse is introducing three new princesses in upcoming fairy tale movies, and there’s a possibility that a couple of badly-behaving princesses will also join the club.
Unfortunately, only two of these princesses have a chance at becoming official members of the Disney princess franchise — the other royals are live-action versions of princesses that already exist in animated Disney movies. Here’s a look at the upcoming fairy tale movies that are in the works:
“Frozen”
This is a CGI animated movie featuring a heroine who resembles Rapunzel from “Tangled” quite a bit. It’s based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale titled “The Snow Queen,” but the movie’s storyline is going to be a lot different from the original story about a young girl who sets out to save her male friend from a Snow Queen’s castle of ice. The film tells the tale of two princess sisters who live in a kingdom called Arendelle. Somehow the older sister named Elsa obtains a form of magic that gives her the ability to freeze her sister Anna’s heart, and the whole kingdom of Arendelle is cursed with another spell that makes it eternally winter. Elsa flees the frozen kingdom and isolates herself by creating an icy castle guarded by an army of magic snowmen. In order to save her frozen heart and her frozen kingdom, Anna sets out on a journey to find her sister. She’s accompanied on her quest by a mountain man named Kristoff and his reindeer sidekick.
It’s possible that Elsa isn’t truly evil and that there’s another real villain in “Frozen” who framed her by freezing the kingdom, so it will be interesting to see if her character is redeemed. If so, she might get to join Anna as an official Disney princess.
“Frozen” features Kristen Bell as the voice of Anna and Broadway star Idina Menzel as Elsa. The film hits theaters on November 27, 2013.
“Maleficent”
This live-action version of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale will focus on the evil fairy who cursed Princess Aurora by making her go into a deep, death-like sleep. Adorable actress Elle Fanning plays the princess, and Angelina Jolie was the only actress right for the Maleficent role.
There are hints that Maleficent casts the sleeping curse on Aurora because the fairy had her heart broken by Aurora’s father (Sharlto Copley), and one intriguing report says that Maleficent is actually a fairy princess who must fight to protect her forest kingdom from the human king (Kenneth Cranham) who wants to control it. She also has an enemy in her aunt, a fairy queen named Ulla (Miranda Richardson).
Maleficent probably won’t become an official Disney princess anytime soon since she’s still all evil in the animated movie, but it’s still interesting that she might become a royal in the live-action movie.
“Maleficent” hits theaters on July 2, 2014
“Cinderella”
Disney’s live-action version of one of its most beloved fairy tales will feature “Downton Abbey” actress Lily James as the titular princess and “Game of Thrones” star Richard Madden as her prince. Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett has been cast as Cinderella’s evil stepmother, a cruel character who doesn’t need horns, ravens, or magical powers to be wicked and frightening.
Little is known about the plot of this version of a fairy tale that has been told many, many times, but hopefully Cinderella gets a makeover — think Kristen Stewart’s warrior princess in “Snow White and the Huntsman.” It will also be interesting to see if Disney makes this fairy tale darker like the gruesome Brothers Grimm version that has body parts being cut off and eyeballs being pecked out.
“Cinderella” will probably hit theaters sometime in 2014.
So which of these fairy tale movies are you looking forward to most?