Among Disney's live-action remakes the most successful have been the ones that most faithfully reproduced the original animated film. However, before The Lion King and Aladdin, there was Maleficent, which took the classic story of Sleeping Beauty and re-told it from the perspective of the villain. The next Disney remake will follow in those footsteps with the long anticipated prequel story about 101 Dalmatians epic villain Cruella de Vil, with Emma Stone in the lead. A brand new poster for the film, simply titled Cruella, just dropped and the actress looks amazing, and more than a little scary. To be sure, she looks like a spider waiting for the kill.
The poster is entirely in black and white with the exception of the bright red title. And we get a close up of Emma Stone in full Cruella mode. She looks incredible here. Honestly it looks a bit like a punk rock album cover, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. I would buy this album. Check out the brand new poster below.
The poster is just the shot, the chaser will come tomorrow when the first trailer for Cruella is reportedly set to be released. Then we'll really know what we're in for with the film. All reports are that the movie is set to be a prequel, a sort of "origin story" for the popular Disney villain. I guess we'll learn why she loves fur coats so much, and perhaps why she really wants to make coats out of spotted dogs.
Cruella has been an interesting movie among the live-action remakes because it's been an incredibly quiet production. This is only the second look we've received of Emma Stone in character. Emma Stone has been attached to a Cruella movie since 2016, but there was little hype around it at the time and it took a while for the movie to really get off the ground. Even when the movie was first placed on the official Disney release calendar, with most people focused on Marvel and Star Wars projects, this one just quietly moved forward. But as a result, we know remarkably little about it compared to your average Disney tentpole.
At this point, Cruella is still planned for theatrical release this May. However, recent comments from Disney CEO Bob Chapek confirmed that Black Widow could end up seeing a day-and-date release on Disney+ if theaters are not open or if consumers are not confident enough to visit them. That movie comes out just a few weeks before Cruella, and so whatever fate befalls the Marvel movie could also happen here.
While it's clear that most audiences want to see their favorite animated Disney movies brought to life as near to the original as possible, I prefer those that take the material in new directions, and so I'm very interested in what Cruella has to offer.
