One of Disney's most iconic villains, Cruella de Vil, made her name by kidnapping just shy of 100 puppies in order to skin them for their soft fur which would be made into fashion garments sold to the highest of bidders. (These movies are for kids, after all.) But now America's sweetheart Emma Stone is reported as being in talks for the villainess' role.
As of this writing, THR reports that Stone is in early negotiations for the title role of Cruella, a live-action remake of Disney's 101 Dalmatians. Though the picture currently has no director attached, Disney has it marked as a priority film that they plan to start shooting on later this year. Kelly Marcel is writing the script for the origin story, one that was previously worked on by Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada). This will be the first live-action revisit to the property since the 1996 G-rated film starring Glenn Close as Cruella and its 2000 sequel, 102 Dalmatians.
Six-time Oscar nominee Close certainly did the best she could with her version of Cruella de Vil, but Stone would get the added flexibility of portraying the villainess before she became so cruel. Much like Disney and Angelina Jolie have done with the "Mistress of All Evil" in Maleficent, or Mila Kunis' Theodora in Oz the Great and Powerful, I fully expect Cruella to play up the innocent side of the fashionista before she became a puppy-murdering maniac. With magic coming into play in the previous two tales, however, I'm very curious to see what twists, turns, and leaps of logic Cruella takes to turn Stone from sweet to sadistic.
Meanwhile, when she's not murdering fictional puppies* on screen, the Oscar-nominated Stone will be playing tennis legend Billie Jean King in the comedy Battle of the Sexes, will star opposite Ryan Gosling in Damien Chazelle's La La Land, and will once again lend her voice to her character Eep in The Croods 2.
(*No puppies were harmed in the writing of this article.)
