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To create a believable backstory for Cruella, the gaunt, screeching villain from Disney’s 1961 animated classic “One Hundred and One Dalmatians,” director Craig Gillespie also needed a believable setting. Gillespie’s new live-action origin story, “Cruella,” plants a young version of the character, called Estella, in 1970s London where she’s an aspiring fashion designer. Although it’s not specified, the director sees the story, based on a screenplay by Tony McNamara and Dana Fox, unfolding in 1978 the heart of the punk era.
“As a character, we’ve created this journey for her where she has this inner voice and she has this talent she’s trying to express,” Gillespie explains of Cruella, played by Emma Stone. “But she’s penalized for it because it’s outside of the constructs of society at the time. She’s in this rigid English system where you can’t be outside the lines. It’s not until she ultimately leans into who she truly is and that stre
‘Cruella’ is a vaguely retro costume party with a doggedly retro playlist a treat for fashion-curious kids whipped up by the boomers and Gen Xers who hold the keys to the Disney IP storage locker. And there’s a millennial Oscar winner in the titular role. When I say it has something for everyone I’m not being sarcastic, though I’m also not being entirely complimentary.
This revisionist supervillain origin story, directed by Craig Gillespie (‘I, Tonya’), doesn’t offer much that is genuinely new, but it nonetheless feels fresher than most recent Disney live-action efforts. There’s some visual wit and pop sparkle in the mildly Dickensian tale of how Cruella DeVil, the notorious pooch-hater of ‘One Hundred and One Dalmatians,’ came to be that way.
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Since it’s nice to be prepared, the Academy announced some key dates for next year’s Oscars key being that they will be on March 27, 2022, splitting the difference between their more typical late February date and this year’s April event. As Glenn Whipp explained, the Academy may actually be getting out of the way of the Beijing Olympics and the Super Bowl.
Also this week, Ryan Faughnder and Wendy Lee explained what Amazon’s deal to buy MGM really means for Hollywood:
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“The pandemic has accelerated the consumer shift toward streaming-on-demand content, putting pressure on cable companies and movie theaters that are struggling to deal with the fallout. Although some studios and media companies have launched rival streaming services such as Paramount+ and Peacock, their user numbers pale in comparison with the subscriber bases of larger players such as