Elle Fanning Will Star as Sleeping Beauty to Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent

Elle Fanning was once just the little sister to Dakota Fanning, the precocious little girl from 'Cat in the Hat', 'War of the Worlds' and 'Man on Fire'. But after strong performances in 'Super 8' and 'We Bought a Zoo' last year may have pushed Elle to the top of the Fanning Power Rankings. And now Elle just scored a lead role in one of Disney's biggest upcoming films.

Twitch Film is reporting that Fanning has signed on to star as Aurora (a.k.a., Sleeping Beauty) is Disney's live-action reimaginging of the classic fairy tale, 'Maleficent'. The catch here is that this film will focus on the classic 'Sleeping Beauty' villain, played here by Angelina Jolie.

It's just one of Disney attempts to reboot their classic animated fairy tales with big live-action movies. It worked extremely well with 'Alice in Wonderland' (over $1B worldwide) and the studio is concurrently developing this project and a separate 'Cinderella' film.

Robert Stromberg, the Oscar-winning visual effects specialist who worked with Disney on the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films, will make his directorial debut with 'Maleficent'. As for Elle's sister, Dakota can be seen next in 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2'.