One of the creators of ABC's Once Upon a Time recently revealed why they are focusing on not one but three villains in the second half of season 4, Maleficent (Kristin Bauer van Straten), Cruella de Vil (Victoria Smurfit) and Ursula (Merrin Dungey).

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Maleficent, Cruella and Ursula, a.k.a. The Queens of Darkness, are slated to become the main villains in the latter half of this season. This is noteworthy considering Once Upon a Time usually only focuses on one villain per arc, such as Peter Pan (Robbie Kay), the Wicked Witch (Rebecca Mader) or the Snow Queen (Elizabeth Mitchell).

With three villains now in the mix, Once Upon a Time co-creator Adam Horowitz recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly about how they changing up the formula with the Queens.

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"We certainly don't want to repeat ourselves. What we want to do is hopefully tell new stories for our characters," Horowitz explained. "These villains were very interesting to us, not just because of who they were as villains, but because of the possibilities we saw of how they could connect to our characters and what they could reveal about our characters."

Horowitz then posed several questions about what the Queens' arrival will mean to characters like Regina (Lana Parrilla), Emma (Jennifer Morrison), Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Charming (Josh Dallas).

"We have some answers to those questions and we're very excited about it," he teased.

Along with co-creator Edward Kitsis, the pair have been teasing that the upcoming second half of the season will be more focused on the core characters like Emma and Regina, at least more than they were in the first half of the season.

Once Upon a Time returns for the second half of season 4 on Sunday, March 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

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Once Upon A Time, Television, ABC