RETELLING FAMILIAR children’s stories from the perspective of their resident baddies has proven to be box-office gold, with the stage musical Wicked (soon to be a movie) raking in more than $1.2 billion on Broadway and the 2014 film Maleficent and its 2019 sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, also earning more than $1.2 billion. Now, Disney is making a prequel about Cruella de Vil – the cigarette-smoking, fur-loving villainess from One Hundred and One Dalmatians – set in 1970s London. Cruella stars Oscar-winner Emma Stone as de Vil, a young, aspiring, haute couture designer who embraces the dark side after working under fashion legend Baroness von Hellman, played by fellow Oscar-winner Emma Thompson, 62.
Speaking of baddies, Helen Mirren, 75, told Zoomer in 2019 she hoped for her own car-chase scene in a future Fast & Furious film, and she got her wish…