Disney has been planning to make an origin story happen for 101 Dalmatians' fur fetishist Cruella de Vil for a little over a year now. Emma Stone is still attached to play the lead, and now the project seems to be taking a step forward as director Alex Timbers is in negotiations to tackle the movie.
With the latest draft of the script from Jez Butterworth, the planned new film would tell more about how Cruella became the woman with dangerous and controversially fur-happy style from the original 'toon (itself adapted from Dodie Smith's 1956 novel). With, one assumes a reason for why she's called Cruella in the first place. Is it an assumed name? Or did her parents simply realise she was destined to cause trouble at an early age?
The directorial choice is an interesting one, as Timbers had been overseeing the Broadway musical version of Frozen, but left the project in August over creative differences. He's largely worked in the theatre (including on shows such as Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Peter And The Starcatcher), but screen-wise, he was co-creator and a main director on Amazon comedy drama series Mozart In The Jungle. Disney is hoping to get the Cruella movie up and shooting next year.