Cruella

Disney is taking another one of the many (many, many, many) live-action projects from their growing to-do pile and officially placing it in the queue, as the studio appears to have found a director for their long-developing Cruella project. Like Maleficent, this one offers a bit of a twist, re-imagining the classic 101 Dalmatians story through the eyes of its villain, Cruella De Vil, with Emma Stone set to play the titular role.

Disney is really doubling down on its growing live-action reboot / remake empire, claiming five more release dates for its upcoming projects and officially confirming several previously reported films, including The Jungle Book 2, Maleficent 2, Tim Burton’s Dumbo and more. The studio now has a total of seven release dates set for various live-action projects, and though they have yet to formally attach specific titles to these dates, reports suggest that at least one of the new dates belongs to The Jungle Book sequel.

Disney began developing a Cruella De Vil movie a few years ago, but with the success of the similarly villain-oriented Maleficent and their live-action Cinderella redo, the Cruella project has been put on the fast-track with Fifty Shades of Grey scribe Kelly Marcel penning the screenplay. Although the project does not yet have a director, it may be close to signing a star, as Emma Stone is in talks to portray the iconic 101 Dalmatians villain and demented fur connoisseur.

After some highly-publicized and unfortunate drama surrounding Fifty Shades of Grey, screenwriter Kelly Marcel opted out of returning to pen the sequel — that’s bad news for Fifty Shades fans, as Marcel’s script vastly improved upon the source material, but good news for Marcel fans, as the writer is now freed up to pursue non-Fifty Shades projects (it’s for the best), like Disney’s live-action Cruella de Vil movie.

In the age of spinoffs and standalone stories, it looks like '101 Dalmatians' villain Cruella De Vil is getting her own spinoff movie at Disney! But Glenn Close will not be starring in this one ... yet, anyway.