It’s a day ending in ‘y,’ so Disney has another live-action, villain-focused adaptation of one of their classic animated films in the works. This one coming from the screenwriter Kelly Marcel, who wrote the 50 Shades of Grey script. Excuse me while I weep for a bit.


All the way back in April of this year, I mentioned that a Cruella movie had been announced in 2013, but nothing had come of it. “It might be for the best,” I said. Cruella de Vil is a woman whose sole motivation is to make a coat out of puppies. And that does not a sympathetic protagonist make.

This face?


This is not a face that can carry a movie on its own. She’s a great villain. She’s a dynamite Halloween costume. She has one of the all-time great Disney songs written about her. Yet I do not want to see her backstory.

This is going to be a movie about a woman who had a dream. A dream to have a clothing company that did everything right, that made real fashion for real women. Only, to be competitive in this world, you have to get new product out there fast. It needs to be things that are familiar—but with a twist. And so, Cruella de Vil, desperate to save her company, turns to dog fur coats. It’s a depressing tale of the pressures of capitalism and consumerism on art.

Even if that’s not the route Disney chooses to go, that will still be the message of the movie.

[The Hollywood Reporter]

Contact the author at katharine@io9.com .