Cruella De Vil Awaits Her Close-Up

Disney, which in recent years has mined its immense animation library for live action updates after the phenomenal worldwide box office success of 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, is at it again.  Word is that the Mouse House is pushing forward a new project that will center around one of their most famous screen villains – 101 Dalmatians‘ Cruella De Vil.  The famed dog-snatching villain first appeared in Dodie Smith’s original 1956 novel The One Hundred and One Dalmatians which itself was turned into the popular 1961 Disney animated feature.  The character has already been given the Disney live action treatment twice before when Glenn Close played the fur-loving character in the 1996’s version of 101 Dalmatians, as well as it’s 2000 sequel 102 Dalmatians.

This latest announcement comes after several other live action works based on classic Disney animated films are in various stages of development.  Maleficient, which charts the story of Sleeping Beauty through the perspective of its pointy-horned villain comes out in theaters next summer with Angelina Jolie portraying the title character.  Robert Stromberg, who won back-to-back Academy Awards for his production design work on 2009’s Avatar as well as Tim Burton’s live-action reworking of Alice in Wonderland directs the film with script from Paul Dini and Linda Woolverton.  Also in the works is a new take on Cinderella with Downton Abbey‘s Lily James in the title role and Cate Blanchett as the evil Lady Tramaine.  Kenneth Branagh is at the helm for this film, due in theaters in the spring of 2015 from a script by Aline Brosh McKenna and Chris Weitz.

All that is known about Cruella so far is that Disney has once again hired McKenna to pen the screenplay.  In addition to her writing credit on Cinderella, McKenna is most known for her adaptation of the Meryl Streep starrer The Devil Wears Prada, as well as Morning Glory, We Bought a Zoo and the upcoming modern remake of the classic musical Annie due in theaters next winter.