Film

Your First Look At Emma Stone As Cruella de Vil Is Here, And Ho Boy

Yes please.

Emma Stone

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In the long pantheon of Disney villains, one antagonist stands apart from the others: Ms. Cruella de Vil, she of 101 Dalmations fame.

Sure, de Vil might be into dog murder, which is arguably one of the more frowned-upon types of animal murder (for instance, it’s hard to imagine she’d strike as much fear into the heart of her enemies if she was, say, a woodlouse murderer.) But despite how heinous her crimes are, she carries off her misdeeds with such a rogueish sense of charm that it’s hard not to secretly root for her.

After all, how many other scheming antagonists can carry off that two-tone haircut, let alone a long cigarello in a particularly dastardly cigarette-holder?

Well, looks like that sense of charm is carrying right over into Disney’s new prequel film, Cruella. Helmed by Craig Gillespie, the Sydney-born filmmaker behind I, Tonya, and starring Emma Stone, Cruella is set to follow the misadventures of the young scoundrel. Given how Maleficent went, it’s likely that the film will show how de Vil’s moral compass was slowly scrambled — I’d bet that she starts off the film as a dog-lover, before a cruel twist of fate turns her into the arch pooch-hater that we know and love.

Anyway, we won’t actually know what Cruella is about till the film hits cinemas, and that’s a long time away: the release date has been tentatively booked for 2021.

Disney knows you’re hungry for de Vil, however, and so the company has a little present for you: the very first press photo of Stone in full get-up.

Feast your eyes, folks, on your new Cruella:

Listen, whether you’re exhausted by the spate of Disney remakes and spin-offs or not, it’s hard not to feel a little flicker of excitement when clapping eyes on that singularly badass image.

Let’s hope the movie lives up to it.