The Cruella trailer was released last week, and the upcoming Disney prequel for one of the worst of the worst villains looks like it will be quite the wild ride.
Emma Stone (Amazing Spider-Man, The Help, La La Land) will play the legendary Dalmatian-hating Disney villainess in the late 1960s in a story inspired by Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians, which was adapted into the 1961 animated classic and remade as the 1995 live-action version starring Glenn Close (The Natural, Air Force One, Hoodwinked) as Cruella de Vil (with House‘s Hugh Laurie as her henchman Jasper).
Cruella the movie will take place in London, as the Maureen Johnston prequel tie-in novel Hello Cruel Heart explains, and this general gleeful anarchy vibe that that suggests is out in full force here.
As our FanSided Network sister site Culturess pointed out, it feels a bit like Joker meets Suicide Squad.
The first Cruella trailer is here, and it will be crazy.
“From the very beginning, I realised I see the world a little differently than everyone else,” Stone muses in a cackle, ending the trailer with the line “I am Cruella,” which means it’s very likely a nickname.
Somehow, this leads to a life of robberies, arson, and vehicle theft, while it also seems likely that familial bonds are disintegrating.
A small pack of Dalmatians definitely get the message that Stone’s character is bad news, growling when she crashes a party (or perhaps fancy charity event?) in Hunger Games fashion.
Throughout the trailer the 1958 pop song “Who’s Sorry Now?” by Connie Francis plays in the background, which fits perfectly from a thematic standpoint, as it pits Cruella against the world, while also matching the chronological setting extremely well, as given her level of stardom at that point in her career it would be like including Lady Gaga music in a trailer today.
Given that none of the pieces of the 101 Dalmatians franchise really match up with each other (that’s a story for another day, Cruella de Vil has been played often by various actors.
In the ABC TV series Once Upon a Time, Cruella was a recurring character in seasons 3 and 4, played by Irish actress Victoria Smurfit, while prolific voice actress April Winchell (Animaniacs, Recess, Kim Possible) voiced the character in the 1997 TV series 101 Dalmatians: The Series, while radio actress Betty Lou Gerson voiced the role in the original animated movie. In the DCOM trilogy of Descendants movies, Cruella’s son Carlos is played by Cameron Boyce.
At the moment, the plan is for Cruella to hit theaters on Friday, May 28.