Production notes

Walt Disney first considered making an animated version of Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty" in 1938; Joe Grant did preliminary story work in the late 1930s, but the project did not materialize at the time. After a preview audience's positive response to Cinderella, Disney registered Sleeping Beauty as a planned production title with the Motion Picture Association of America on January 19, 1950. By November of that year, the film's development had been confirmed by the Los Angeles Times. Disney envisioned Sleeping Beauty as the pinnacle of his studio's achievements in animation and was willing to pool all the resources needed to achieve that. He also wanted the film to stand out from his previous fairy tale features, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Cinderella (1950), and repeatedly told his staff during production that it had to be different. Key story work was done by Ted Sears, Winston Hibler, Bill Peet, and Ralph Wright, who were joined by other story artists as production continued. They discarded the second half of Perrault's original tale, which tells about the life of sleeping beauty married to an unknown prince, and focused on its first half to develop a more compelling romance between the characters. The earliest story outline was written by April 1951, featuring a climactic wake-up kiss and the encounter between prince and princess before she succumbs to the curse. The story artists also expanded the role of fairies (who had been reduced from eight to four), turning the good fairies into comical guardians of the princess, and the evil fairy into a more powerful villain. The outline indicated the names of the fairies and their corresponding magical abilities: Tranquility, the Fairy of Dreams; Fernadell, the Fairy of the Forest; Merryweather, the Fairy of the Elements; and Maleficent, the Fairy of Darkness. In this version of the story, Maleficent conjures an indestructible spinning wheel, which the king and queen unsuccessfully try to get rid of before they are forced to never let their daughter out of the castle. The princess was envisioned as a "poor little rich girl", burdened with her royal lineage and dreaming of leaving the castle and exploring the world. Shortly before her sixteenth birthday, the princess disguises herself as a maidservant and secretly escapes to a nearby forest (or country fair), where she meets the prince and falls in love with him. The prince travels to a faraway land and returns a few years later to fight Maleficent (with the help of the good fairies), find the sleeping princess, and wake her up with a kiss. The story ideas at the time also included the good fairies attempting to surround the castle with a protective circle, and Maleficent having a falcon sidekick (who was rewritten as a comically incompetent vulture in a later treatment).

By June 1952, the full storyboard of Sleeping Beauty was completed, but Disney rejected it, finding its approach too similar to his studio's earlier fairy tale features. The story artists discarded the original version and started from scratch, but kept several ideas from earlier suggestions, such as the prince's acquaintance with the princess before the curse is fulfilled, and a shorter deep sleep. Part of the difficulty in production was in differentiating the studio's third princess, who had been named Aurora, from Snow White and Cinderella. The story artists came up with an idea of the fairies raising her in a forest cottage, with Aurora unaware of her background or the danger she faced. She was also given a more contemporary personality to make her more appealing to audiences. The improvement of his animators' skill in drafting a realistic male figure prompted Disney to expand the role of the prince, who had been named Phillip. The story team initially developed a sequence in which Aurora and Phillip meet during a treasure hunt, but later abandoned it, feeling it deviated too much from the central storyline; instead, it was written that the characters would meet in the forest by chance, as in the early 1951 outline. To further establish Phillip as Aurora's "true love", the story artists developed a plot in which Maleficent kidnaps him and plans to keep him prisoner in her castle for a century (which would also be a reference to the 100-year slumber in Perrault's story). Disney wanted a more serious narrative direction for Sleeping Beauty, which resulted in several gags and sequences being cut; in one, the Three Good Fairies (who had been renamed Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) try to bake a birthday cake for Aurora and accidentally blow up the oven. The good fairies were originally intended to rule the domains indicated by their names (Flora would be in charge of flowers and plants, Fauna would oversee the animals and birds, and Merryweather would control the climate), but Disney discarded the idea, feeling that it did not advance the central storyline. In earlier versions of the story, Aurora directly encounters Maleficent, who manipulates her into pricking her finger on the spindle, but Disney requested that the scene be rewritten so that Maleficent would lure Aurora with hypnosis, believing that the "eerie, haunting presentation of a victim powerless in the hands of evil" would be a stronger option. Several story elements originated from abandoned ideas for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Cinderella (1950), including the prince and princess dancing in the clouds, and Phillip's escape from Maleficent's domain.

Walt Disney spent three years searching for a voice for Princess Aurora and considered shelving the project entirely before Mary Costa was cast by June 1952. She was invited to audition by the film's original composer Walter Schumann, who heard her singing at a dinner party for the entertainment industry. Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Costa had a strong Southern accent, which nearly prevented her from being cast until she proved that she could speak with a British accent. Disney personally contacted Costa within hours of her audition to confirm that she had the role. Before Costa was cast, LP records by forty female singers were heard by the story artists, and fifteen of them auditioned in person. Costa recorded her lines for three years, from 1952 to 1955. Twenty singers auditioned for the role of Prince Phillip, and Bill Shirley, who had a high baritone voice and experience in light opera, was the final choice. Before Shirley and Costa were selected, they made audition records together to determine if their voices complemented each other; Disney was convinced that they did, and approved the casting. Disney personally suggested Eleanor Audley for the role of Maleficent. Audley initially refused, since she had tuberculosis and was unsure if she would be strong enough for recording sessions, but reconsidered when she began feeling better. Regarding her voice work for the character, Audley later said that she "tried to do a lot of contrasting to be both sweet and nasty at the same time." Barbara Jo Allen was cast as Fauna, who had been frequently compared by the story artists to Vera Vague (Jo Allen's character on Bob Hope's radio show), and Barbara Luddy (who done the voice of Lady in Disney's previous film Lady and the Tramp) got the role of Merryweather. Several of the studio's voice regulars were cast in the film, including Verna Felton as Flora, Bill Thompson as King Hubert, and Candy Candido as one of Maleficent's goons. Felton is also believed to have been the voice of Queen Leah, but the studio has no record of who voiced the character. A number of actors auditioned for the role of King Stefan (including Hans Conried) before Taylor Holmes was cast; this was Holmes's final film role before his death in September 1959, eight months after the film's release.

To distinguish Sleeping Beauty from his previous features, Walt Disney decided to discard their established soft and rounded design in favor of a more stylized approach. Ken Anderson and Don DaGradi were appointed production designers for the film. By December 1952, Kay Nielsen had created the first styling sketches for the film, which suggested an ethereal look with soft colors. While impressed with the artwork, Anderson felt that Nielsen's pastels would be difficult to translate into animation, so Disney asked John Hench to rework Nielsen's paintings with opaque cel paints. By April 1953, Nielsen had left the studio, and his design was rejected. The film's final style was developed after Hench's visit to the Cloisters, where he saw the Unicorn Tapestries series; he brought reproductions of the tapestries back to the studio and made sketches inspired by the museum visit, suggesting them as a visual template for the film's design. Disney approved the idea, and background artist Eyvind Earle made trial paintings based on Hench's sketches. Wanting Sleeping Beauty to have a unified look from start to finish, Disney made Earle both the film's color stylist and artistic director, giving him unprecedented control of its appearance, and leaving Anderson and Don DaGradi as only nominal production designers.

Earle's styling was influenced by pre-Renaissance Northern European art (including the works of Pieter Bruegel, Albrecht Dürer, Huybrecht van Eyck, Giotto di Bondone, and Sandro Botticelli), as well as of Gothic and Persian art, medieval tapestries, and Japanese prints. His main inspiration for Sleeping Beauty was the illuminated book of hours by Herman and Jean Limbourg, Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, from which he took key colors such as the yellow-green for Maleficent's flames, and the pink and blue for Aurora's royal dress. Films such as Henry V (1944) and Romeo and Juliet (1954) also influenced Earle's design. Earle combined historical references with a modernist vision, suggesting a more stylized and boldly colored appearance for backgrounds and characters, unlike anything seen in previous Disney animated features. In his five years of working on the film, Earle created about three hundred visual development paintings, hundreds of thumbnail sequence sketches, and dozens of key background paintings, some fifteen feet long. Over eight hundred other backgrounds in the film were created by Frank Armitage, Thelma Witmer, Al Dempster, Walt Peregoy, Bill Layne, Ralph Hulett, Dick Anthony, Fil Mottola, Richard H. Thomas, and Anthony Rizzo, who worked under Earle's supervision and closely followed his style to ensure consistency in the film's design. Sleeping Beauty was the first film of the studio in which background paintings defined its art direction. Although the layout artists and animators were impressed with Earle's paintings, they became discouraged by working in a style that seemed to them too austere and modernist for the fairy tale feature. Animators complained that Earle's design and color styling hindered character animation, and struggled to make the characters stand out against his detailed background paintings. Earle was argumentative and unwilling to compromise, which resulted in conflicts between him and the animators. At one point, Frank Thomas and Milt Kahl rebelled and went to Disney's office to complain, but Disney settled the dispute in Earle's favor, insisting on a unified look for Sleeping Beauty and arguing that animators had always previously homogenized the style of the inspirational artwork (such as that of Mary Blair). Earle's design prompted Walt Disney to film Sleeping Beauty in Super Technirama 70 as the first animated film in this format. This decision presented additional difficulties for animators and layout artists, who had to work with large 48-inch sheets of paper (instead of the standard 16-inch ones), and create twice as much art to fill the frame. Sleeping Beauty was the last hand-inked Disney animated feature film before the studio switched to the Xerox process with One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). Xerox was partially used in Sleeping Beauty to animate the forest of thorns in the final battle sequence.

Before animation began, a live-action reference version with actors in costumes was filmed for the animators to study; Walt Disney insisted on this, because he wanted the characters to be as close to real life as possible. Several animators (including Milt Kahl) objected to this method, considering it constraining and uncreative. By March 1954, Helene Stanley was hired to provide live-action references for Princess Aurora. She was chosen from over three hundred candidates interviewed for the role. Stanley's costume for Aurora's woodland alter ego, Briar Rose, was created by Alice Estes at the behest of Marc Davis as her first job assignment for the Disney studio. Stanley also provided the reference for some scenes with the Three Good Fairies, along with Spring Byington, Madge Blake, Frances Bavier, Marjorie Bennett, and Trudi Schoop. Prince Phillip was modeled by Ed Kemmer. For the footage of the final battle sequence, Kemmer had to ride a wooden wagon imitating a horse which was controlled by the animators. Cubby O'Brien was a model for young Phillip. The live-action reference for Maleficent was provided by her voice actress, Eleanor Audley, and dancer Jane Fowler. Hans Conried and Don Barclay were live-action references for King Stefan and King Hubert. The lackey who serves wine to the kings in the "Skumps" scene was modeled by Franklin Pangborn.

Layout artist Tom Oreb, whose designs employed a "straight-against-curve" motif similar to Earle's backgrounds, was the film's character stylist. Oreb was the first Disney artist to receive a credit in that capacity. Working closely with Earle (who also had decision-making capability in character designs and color schemes), he created preliminary sketches for most of the characters, incorporating strong horizontal and vertical planes like those in the background paintings. The studio's ink and paint department made finished cels of Oreb's sketches, which were placed over Earle's backgrounds to ensure that the styles would match. The animators complained that Oreb's designs, like Earle's styling, were too rigid to animate. According to Ken Anderson, the characters became "really, unfortunately, quite stiff. In order to fit this mannered background, they, too, took on a sort of cylindrical, geometrical shape that didn't lend itself as well to the ... Well, you might say, the Bambi type of animation. It wasn't really possible just to make the characters fit the style and still be quite as attractive." Marc Davis, who embraced Earle's style, was the supervising animator of Princess Aurora. He also worked on the character's design along with Oreb, whose earlier designs of Aurora were influenced by Audrey Hepburn. Stylizing the character to match the backgrounds, Oreb incorporated vertical lines into the folds of her dresses and two-dimensional swirls into her hair, while Davis sharpened her features and clothes, adding Art Nouveau and Art Deco style to her curls. Aurora's final design was more refined than those of previous Disney heroines, and therefore required more attention to detail than any animated character before. Iwao Takamoto, who was the quality control animator for Aurora, called working with her animation drawings a "laborious job" which limited in-betweeners such as himself to completing only six or seven drawings per day, a small fraction of the twenty-four required for each second of film.

Davis was also tasked with supervising Maleficent's animation and design, which was inspired by a painting in a Czechoslovak art book that he found in his home library. Davis' original designs had red trim on Maleficent's costume to highlight its flame-like shape, but Earle requested to change it to lavender because red would appear too strong. Davis also added horns and a collar resembling bat wings to give the character a more diabolic look, and endowed her costume with a reptilian quality to foreshadow her dragon form. Animating Maleficent was challenging for Davis because of the character's tendency to soliloquize and her lack of physical contact with other characters; this was resolved with the introduction of Diablo, Maleficent's raven, whom Davis also designed and animated. Maleficent's dragon form was animated by Eric Cleworth, who based its head movements on those of a rattlesnake. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, who struggled the most to adapt to Earle's style, were the supervising animators of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. Walt Disney initially urged that the characters be homogeneous, but Thomas and Johnston objected, feeling that it would be more interesting for each fairy to have a distinct personality. Oreb's early designs portrayed the characters in a strictly geometric style, reflecting the three primary shapes (square, triangle, and circle), but this was too difficult to animate, and was discarded. The final design was set after Don DaGradi created sketches suggesting making the fairies' faces softer, but keeping their capes and headdresses angular to match the background styling. Thomas and Johnston studied the movements of old women they saw at wedding receptions and grocery stores for help in animation, and the fairies' costume design was influenced by wardrobe books for medieval Scandinavian and German-style attire. Milt Kahl animated Prince Phillip, but was displeased with the character's limited emotional range. He also animated King Stefan, King Hubert, and Phillip's horse, Samson, whose design was influenced by the artwork of Ronald Searle. Kahl's characters were co-animated by John Lounsbery, who also worked on Aurora's forest-animal friends and the pig-like leader of Maleficent's goons. Among other animators working on the film were Wolfgang Reitherman, who directed the climactic dragon battle sequence; Les Clark, who directed the opening scene in which the townspeople march to the castle for Aurora's christening; and John Sibley, who animated the lackey.

In 1952, Walt Disney planned to release Sleeping Beauty in 1955, but the production experienced substantial delays. By April 1954, the film was scheduled for a February 1957 release, which was soon postponed to Christmas 1957. The release was later rescheduled for Christmas 1958, with the film eventually premiering in January 1959. Production began in July 1953, when supervising director Wilfred Jackson started work on a pilot sequence of Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip meeting in the forest. Jackson recorded dialogue, assembled a story reel, and was starting to assign preliminary animation, but Disney was dissatisfied with the original version of the scene. Jackson (along with Ted Sears and two other story artists) had to extensively rewrite it over the next few months before Disney approved the revised version. In December 1953, Jackson had a heart attack and was replaced by Eric Larson, whose unit would animate the scene. By 1954, the film's production was still in its early stages. In July of that year, Disney began developing his own theme park and a number of television series, such as The Mickey Mouse Club, and most of the studio personnel working on Sleeping Beauty at the time were assigned to develop those projects. The film's production was suspended for two years, but not fully abandoned, as the project was given to Erdman Penner and Joe Rinaldi for further development, while the castle at Disneyland was named Sleeping Beauty Castle to promote the film. By early 1955, the full storyboard had been completed and was ready to be discussed with Disney. Production of Sleeping Beauty resumed in December 1956. Although Disney insisted on overseeing every aspect of the film, he remained focused on his theme park, and animators (such as Milt Kahl) blamed him for effectively delaying the production. Due to the complexity of Eyvind Earle's styling, the animation process progressed slowly: 2,500 feet of animation had been completed by January 1957, with 3,775 feet yet to be done. Around the same time, Disney began to show disinterest in Sleeping Beauty; according to studio executive Harry Tytle, after the screening of the finished footage on August 22, 1957, Disney was tired and did not pay the project the attention he would have given years earlier. Determined to make Sleeping Beauty a "moving illustration" (as Disney demanded of him at the beginning of production), Larson spent several years working on the forest scene, which eventually cost $10,000. Disney was dissatisfied with the film's growing budget, and as a result, a quota system was introduced to keep costs down, requiring animators to create a specified number of drawings per day. Relatively late in production, Disney removed Larson as supervising director and replaced him with Clyde Geronimi, who had creative differences with Earle. Geronimi argued that some of Earle's background paintings (such as those used in the dungeon scene) lacked the mood and were overly detailed to the detriment of character animation. By that time, Disney also felt that too much focus was on the film's design at the expense of its story. In March 1958, before Sleeping Beauty was completed, Earle left the Disney studio for John Sutherland Productions; Geronimi then had the background paintings softened with an airbrush so they did not compete with the animation.

Sleeping Beauty initially received mixed reviews from critics, with many praising its art direction, voice acting, and musical score, but criticizing its plot and characters. Ren Grevatt from Billboard called the film a "Disney best", and complimented its score, colors, and the final battle scene, which he described as a "hair-raiser for the youngsters and grown-up alike." Variety praised the vocal work of Mary Costa and Bill Shirley, and called the scenes involving the Three Good Fairies "some of the best parts of the picture." Kate Cameron wrote for The New York Daily News that the film "will charm the young and tickle adults" and praised its story, voice acting, and character animation. George Bourke of the Miami Herald described the film as a "magnificent achievement, offering suspense, action and happy humor, in a truly giant-size package." Writing for the St. Petersburg Times, Lorna Carroll called the film a "masterpiece and the last word in the art of animation"; however, although Sleeping Beauty is "far more magnificent, far more advanced, it does not touch the heart as did Snow White." Henry Ward of The Pittsburgh Press praised the film's art direction, and said that children "undoubtedly will find the film completely enchanting", adding that a more-mature audience "may find this new effort somewhat of a carbon copy" of previous Disney animated features. Bosley Crowther wrote for The New York Times that "the colors are rich, the sounds are luscious and magic sparkles spurt charmingly from wands", but felt that the film's plot and characters were too similar to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times praised the film's visual design, animation quality, and the Three Good Fairies and Maleficent, but criticized its "stereotyped" human characters and found himself more impressed by the accompanying short film Grand Canyon (1958). In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Harold V. Cohen praised the film's "sharp and unmistakable" art style and animation, but found the characters underdeveloped and "not exactly memorable". Harrison's Reports also noted the film's similarity to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), saying that although Sleeping Beauty is "unquestionably superior from the viewpoint of the art of animation", it lacked the "unforgettable" characters, songs, and the overall entertainment appeal of Snow White. Time harshly criticized the film, particularly its design: "Even the drawing in Sleeping Beauty is crude: a compromise between sentimental, crayon-book childishness and the sort of cute, commercial cubism that tries to seem daring but is really just square." When the film was re-released in 1979, Gene Siskel, on Sneak Previews, admitted that he was not a fan of it, criticizing the animation (which he found flat) and stating that the film "is not in the same league as Bambi, Pinocchio, or Dumbo"; on the other hand, Roger Ebert praised the animation, describing the film as a "lively and playful retelling a favorite fairy tale." In 1985, Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader described Sleeping Beauty as "the masterpiece of the Disney Studios' postwar style"; he praised its use of the Super Technirama 70 process, particularly in the final battle scene. Charles Solomon wrote for the Los Angeles Times that the film "represents the culmination of Walt Disney's effort to elevate animation to an art form". Solomon praised its visual design, the character of Maleficent, and the final battle scene, but felt that the film "lacked the strong story line of the other Disney features" (particularly the "not very interesting" romance between Aurora and Phillip). Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine praised the film's "limber, giddy" art style, calling it "one of [Disney's] studio's most under-cherished works." A Time Out reviewer wrote that although Sleeping Beauty "rarely achieves the heights of classics like Snow White and Dumbo, it still has its moments", highlighting its "polished if sometimes stodgy" animation, soundtrack, and the final confrontation between Maleficent and Phillip. In his book, The Disney Films, Leonard Maltin praised the film's design: "The fantastic effort and phenomenal expense do show up on the screen; it is unquestionably Disney's most elaborate cartoon film." Its animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, said on their website that Sleeping Beauty was "dazzling in color and design but lacked warmth." On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 90% of 50 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "This Disney dreamscape contains moments of grandeur, with its lush colors, magical air, [and] one of the most menacing villains in the Disney canon." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100 from 12 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Sleeping Beauty was nominated by the American Film Institute for such categories as 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains (2003), Greatest Movie Musicals (2006), and 10 Top 10 (2008).

Since its original release in 1959, Sleeping Beauty has become one of the most artistically acclaimed animated films ever produced; its artistic direction, background and color styling, and character animation have been praised. It is considered one of the most influential Disney features by the animation industry, with animators such as Mike Gabriel and Michael Giaimo citing the film as inspiring them to enter the business. Sleeping Beauty's background and color styling heavily influenced the design of later animated films, such as Pocahontas (1995), Frozen (2013), Frozen II (2019), and Wish (2023). Andreas Deja, Glen Keane, and Russ Edmonds were inspired by the film's design and animation for their characters in Aladdin (1992), Pocahontas (1995), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). In 2019, Sleeping Beauty was selected for preservation in the United States' National Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". A retrospective exhibition, Awaking Beauty: The Art of Eyvind Earle, was presented at the Walt Disney Family Museum from May 18, 2017, to January 8, 2018. With over 250 works (such as thumbnail paintings, concept artworks, and commercial illustrations), the exhibit reflected Eyvind Earle's biography and his work at the Walt Disney Studios, including his contribution to Sleeping Beauty. An exhibition catalog was published by Weldon Owen on August 8, 2017.

In 1955, while the film was still in production, the Sleeping Beauty Castle opened at Disneyland as a symbol of the park and a promotional tool for the film. In 1957, Walt Disney and Shirley Temple opened an indoor walk-through exhibit with a series of dioramas depicting the story of Sleeping Beauty (which were designed by Eyvind Earle and Ken Anderson). The walk-through was redesigned in 1977, replacing the original hand-painted displays with three-dimensional sets and doll-like figurines. It was closed in 2001 due to declining attendance, although the September 11 attacks are also believed to be a factor. The exhibit reopened in 2008, refurbished to recreate the original 1957 dioramas. The film's characters (particularly Princess Aurora and Maleficent) make regular appearances in the parks and parades, with Maleficent as a villain in the nighttime show Fantasmic! at Disneyland and Disney's Hollywood Studios. Opened in 1992, Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant at Disneyland Paris is a variant of the Sleeping Beauty Castle, with a gallery of displays illustrating the story of Sleeping Beauty in tapestries, stained-glass windows, and figurines. The building also contains an animatronic version of Maleficent's dragon form, La Tanière du Dragon (The Dragon's Den), in the lower-level dungeon. Hong Kong Disneyland opened in 2005 with the Sleeping Beauty Castle nearly replicating Disneyland's design. It was closed in 2018 and redesigned as the Castle of Magical Dreams, which opened in 2020.

DisneyToon Studios released a 2007 direct-to-video animated film, Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams, featuring two new stories about Aurora and Jasmine from Aladdin (1992). Many of Sleeping Beauty's characters make cameo appearances in the 2001–03 television series House of Mouse, as well as in the films Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and The Lion King 1½ (2004). Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather are recurring characters in the 2013–18 Disney Junior series Sofia the First, and Aurora makes a guest appearance in the "Holiday in Enchancia" episode. Aurora is also set to appear in its sequel series, Sofia the First: Royal Magic. With other Disney Princesses, Aurora appears in the 2018 film Ralph Breaks the Internet. Like other Walt Disney Animation Studios characters, Sleeping Beauty characters have cameo appearances in the short film Once Upon a Studio (2023). A 2014 live-action adaptation of the film, Maleficent, tells the story from the perspective of the antagonist (played by Angelina Jolie). It was followed by a sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, in 2019. Live-action versions of Sleeping Beauty characters are featured in the 2011–18 fantasy television series Once Upon a Time (produced by Disney-owned ABC Studios), including Maleficent, Aurora, Prince Phillip, and King Stefan. Maleficent is a main villain in the 2015 television film Descendants, which follows the teenage children of Disney's iconic heroes and villains (including Mal, Maleficent's daughter, and Audrey, the daughter of Aurora and Phillip). A teenage version of Maleficent appears as a character in the franchise's fourth installment, Descendants: The Rise of Red (2024). Maleficent is a recurring villain in the Square Enix/Disney video-game series Kingdom Hearts, and Aurora is one of the Princesses of Heart. The Enchanted Dominion, a world based on the film, appears in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. Aurora, Phillip, and the Three Good Fairies are playable characters in the world-builder video game Disney Magic Kingdoms, with Maleficent as the main antagonist. An alternate version of Maleficent appears as a playable character in the video game Disney Mirrorverse (2022). In September 2026, a new original film idea inspired by Sleeping Beauty entered development, with Dan Trachtenberg signing on as director, Rayna McClendon developing the story, and Alex Anfanger and Dan Schimpf penning the script.