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Disney Announces Maleficent 2 Among Huge Raft Of New Movies

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A second outing for Angelina Jolie as the witch Maleficent has been announced by Disney, among a huge raft of new movie release plans.

‘Maleficent 2’, continuing the extension of the Sleeping Beauty story, will sit among seven new movies, nearly of which will be based on tales from the Disney canon.

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One is likely to be 'The Jungle Book 2’, following the phenomenal success of Jan Favreau’s live-action re-telling of Rudyard Kipling’s story.

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It’s already made an eye-watering $533 million (£365 million) in less than two weeks.

Two of the release slots ear-marked by Disney – August or December, 2018 – could mean that a Disney 'Jungle Book’ sequel could go head-to-head with Andy Serkis’s now-delayed 'Jungle Book’ movie.

Elsewhere, director Tim Burton’s long-rumoured 'Dumbo’ is now set to happen, as is a new re-telling of 'Tinkerbell’, with Reese Witherspoon in the lead.

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There’s also 'Cruella’, an origin story of '101 Dalmatians’, featuring Emma Stone as the pelt-obsessed fashionista.

Elsewhere, there’s a vehicle for Dwayne 'The Rock’ Johnson, called 'Jungle Cruise’, and the Mary Poppins sequel, to be directed by musicals don Rob Marshall and starring Emily Blunt as the magical nanny.

It means that there will be four, so-far unspecified live action fairy tale movies coming from the Mouse House in 2018 alone.

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While it’s not an original gambit, it’s potentially a lucrative one – 'Malificent’ made an impressive $758.5 million (£520 million) at the box office in 2014.

That said, the public appetite for such movies isn’t always so healthy.

'The Huntsman: Winter’s War’, the Snow White spin-off, opened to a sub-expectation $20 million (£13.7 million) last weekend for Universal, considerably less than expected, and clobbered by 'The Jungle Book’, which was on its second week of release, with critics equally unimpressed.

Image credits: Disney/AP