8 Disney Villains Waiting For Their Own Films
Sure, everyone loves the Disney title characters—well, almost everyone. But what about the evil villains who hamper the happily ever after ending we’ve come to expect? When do they get their day in the sun? At last, it looks like Disney has given at least one of these villains a full-length film.
This week Angelina Jolie brings the nasty antagonist from Sleeping Beauty to movie theaters in the live action film Maleficent. This disgruntled party crasher casts a spell on the King and Queen’s newborn baby after being left off of the guest list. Thankfully three other little fairies mitigate the severity of the curse.
However Maleficent isn’t the only character to cause problems for princesses and princes of all sorts. While the following characters are waiting to have their own big screen feature, here’s our list of some other wicked witches, fiendish fairies and sinister stepmothers who have appeared opposite Disney heroes.
Snow White’s stepmother, the Evil Queen, was the first to plot against a princess in Walt Disney’s 1937 full-length color animation Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. When the queen’s magical mirror proclaims Snow White to be the fairest in the land, the queen changes herself into an ugly old fruit peddler who tricks Snow White into eating a poisoned apple.
Cinderella also had to put up with a wicked stepmother and two nasty stepsisters. After the death of Cinderella’s father, Lady Tremaine demotes the girl to the status of a servant and makes sure Cinderella is unable to attend the King’s Ball. Luckily for Cindy, a Fairy Godmother appears just in time to whip up a fantastic dress and a beautiful carriage to whisk her off to the dance where gentle maiden meets the handsome prince.
In the movie Enchanted, the evil Queen Narissa knows her stepson will take over the kingdom as soon as he finds his true love. Hoping to delay—eternally—his decision to marry the beautiful Giselle, Queen Narissa exiles the bride-to-be to the real (live-action) city of New York where the perpetually perky princess meets a divorce lawyer named Robert and his daughter Morgan.
Mother Gothel from Tangled might refer to herself in a matriarchal way but she really is an old witch who maintains her youth and beauty thanks to a magical golden flower. When she discovers that Rapunzel’s golden hair possesses the same magical powers as the flower, she kidnaps the young princess and stashes her away in a tall tower.
Under the sea lives the evil sea witch Ursula who wants to take over the ocean kingdom of King Triton. In order to get the upper fin on the King, Ursula lures his daughter Ariel into exchanging her voice for a pair of human legs. Like some other villainous characters, Ursula has two henchmen, slimy eels named Floatsam and Jetsam, who do her evil bidding in the movie The Little Mermaid.
At the height of the Incan Empire, Kuzco, a selfish teenaged emperor, decides to displace some of his subjects so he can build an enormous summer resort high in the mountains. Unfortunately Kuzco’s recently fired advisor Yzma plans to poison the monarch and take over his empire. However her plan misfires and instead of killing Kuzco, the potion turns him into a llama in the movie The Emperor’s New Groove.
Still one of my all-time favorites, Madam Mim is the nemesis of the legendary wizard Merlin. (He’s the self-appointed teacher who educates the long-lost son of Uther Pendragon that eventually becomes King Arthur.) While Mim isn’t overly interested in Merlin’s scrawny pupil, she never backs down from the opportunity to duel with Merlin in the movie The Sword and the Stone.
Cruella De Vil isn’t out to poison a princess or take over a kingdom. But who better embodies an evil Disney villain that the nasty woman who wants to buy puppies and make a coat out of their skins. Thankfully her plans to kill the spotted pus is put off its tracks by an old sheepdog, a horse and a tabby cat in the movie One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
