Disney does not appear ready to relinquish their quest to retell their classic stories through live-action adaptations, as they release the trailer for Cruella.
Set in London in the 70s, Cruella will explore the tale of one of Disney’s most notorious villains, Cruella de Vil. First introduced to our screens in the 1961 classic, 101 Dalmatians, de Vil is a fashion-obsessed, manic character who is driven by infatuation.
Her fixation with creating a fur coat sends her on a murderous spree in an attempt to gain the fur of the innocent Dalmatian puppies.
The 90 second-long trailer introduces Emma Stone as the role of Cruella de Vil. The audience is subjected to her deep English accent before we get a glimpse of the actress.
The character narrates her own trailer, giving a brief insight into her world. Stone looks and sounds as though she is the perfect person to play the villain, even nailing de Vil’s notoriously spine-chilling chuckle.
It will certainly be interesting to see whether she will be able to uphold this persona through the film’s entirety.
101 Dalmatians has already been adapted as a live-action version in the 1996 film of the same namesake. In this version, Cruella is played by Glenn Close, who is functioning as an executive producer on Cruella.
This film will likely differ from the 1996 film, as the events of Cruella seem as though they will take a similar form to that of the live-action adaptation, Maleficent.
The 2014 film not only recounts the events of its animated counterpart, Sleeping Beauty, but explores the backstory and personality of the villain, Maleficent, to explain why she evolved to commit acts of pure evil.
The dark settings, and perturbing music featured in the trailer makes Cruella comparable to the 2019 psychological horror, Joker. People flocked to Twitter to discuss the parallels between the two titular characters. The Cut magazine described de Vil as “a sort of She-E-O version of the Joker.”
A number of people ridiculed this comparison, and instead compared de Vil to the supervillainess, Harley Quinn. Perhaps this comparison doesn’t hold as much weight due to the fact that Harley Quinn is yet to have a compelling, backstory film dedicated solely to her.
Nonetheless, Cruella is set to put a darker twist on a Disney classic. Films of this nature are intriguing as they reiterate the question, are we born evil or, do we learn evil?
Cruella will be released on May 28th, although it has not yet been disclosed as to whether it will make its debut in cinemas, or will be released similarly to Mulan, on the streaming platform Disney+.
Emma Costigan
Image Credit: Yahoo Movies