Maleficent 2 + Michelle Pfeiffer

So...I came across this headline this evening:

via Variety

And I'm just a little confused. 

All of this is really vague at the moment -- and it's not even official yet -- but the casting news is that Michelle Pfeiffer will be "the queen" in Maleficent 2. 

What queen? 

I don't really remember Maleficent that well -- it's not my favorite, since they gave a badass villain a hell-hath-no-fury backstory -- but I'm pretty sure that the movie ends with Aurora/Elle Fanning being crowned queen. (I think this means her mother dies...? I'm not sure, but it's Disney, so it's a safe bet to assume they axed the mother.)

So Michelle Pfeiffer won't be her mother/*that* queen, which begs the question: which queen will she be playing?

My first thought is that she'll be some sort of Evil Queen. Which...

via GIPHY

Really? Again, Disney? Female conflict? I guess they could spin it as "empowered females" rather than the same old patriarchal monarchy but...pitting females against each other rarely ends well. [Don't even get me started on this Mulan casting news...but more about that later.]

My second thought -- and they're not mutually exclusive -- was that maybe Pfeiffer could be playing Sleeping Beauty's mother-in-law. In the original story -- the "second" part that didn't get adapted in 1959 -- Sleeping Beauty and the Prince get married, and the prince takes her home to meet his parents. But, in a weird twist, his mother is actually a cannibalistic ogress who sends Sleeping Beauty away so she can eat her grand babies (and then Sleeping Beauty). [Because, oh yeah, Sleeping Beauty got pregnant and had two children by him. In some versions of the story -- the Italian version, I think -- the children were conceived before the spell was broken (i.e. rape) and Sleeping Beauty wakes up during labor. Not the best story for consent. One of my favorite things to discuss with students is how True Love's Kiss is basically Disney's invention -- it's not in the original fairy tales: Snow White wakes up because the apple is jolted out of her throat by a clumsy footman and Sleeping Beauty wakes up because the 100 Year Timer goes off.]

So, yeah. It's probably not going to happen because this cannibalistic ogress are like the most un-Disney thing ever, but then Maleficent is essentially raped in the first movie, so I guess it's possible?