Disney has released a sneak peek of Cruella before its May 28th theatrical and digital release. The new footage also featured a song from the upcoming film’s soundtrack by Florence + the Machine called “Call me Cruella.”
Watch the sneak peek here:
The new film focuses on Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians, before we knew her as the puppy thief who “ought to be locked up and never released.” Like Maleficent, the new movie seeks to fill in Cruella’s origin story. For more, check out the full trailer here.
Elliott spent much of his career as the voice that introduced many of us to our favorite Disney films. He worked for Walt Disney Entertainment from 1983 until 2008, a timeframe that included what many consider to be the “renaissance” of Walt Disney animation. The Aristocats and 101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure Special Edition DVDs were the final trailers he announced, both released in 2008.
For many Disney fans in the 1990s, the experience of opening a brand new Disney VHS tape and putting it in the VCR was immediately followed by hearing Mark Elliott’s voice as he announced new and upcoming features.
Here are a few of our favorite trailers featuring Mark’s iconic voice work:
Raya and the Last Dragon has been mega popular recently in the parks as various experiences have popped up to celebrate the film’s upcoming debut!
However, Deadline has reported that the Cinemark, the 3rd most popular movie theater in the U.S., will not be playing Raya and the Last Dragon as the movie is released on March 5th. Despite the fact that Raya will debuting both in theaters and through Premier Access on Disney+, negotiations to play the film at theaters have been difficult.
According to Deadline, Disney’s terms for playing Raya and the Last Dragon were strictly outlined. And, if theaters weren’t happy with the negotiations, they didn’t have to play the film when it was released. This will affect venues in places like New York City, whose Cinemark theaters in the five boroughs are reopening with 25% capacity.
Cinemark has released the statement that “In the current operating environment, we are making near-term booking decisions on a discrete, film-by-film basis, focusing on the long-term benefit of exhibitors, studios and moviegoers.
While we are having conversations with The Walt Disney Company, we have not yet reached agreeable licensing terms for Raya and the Last Dragon. As we continue to work with our studio partners, we remain optimistic that we will reach mutually beneficial terms that will provide moviegoers the opportunity to see the exciting film lineup in our theatres.”
At this time, Raya and the Last Dragon will open in over 2,000 theaters, including 200 IMAX screens, 360 Premium Large Format screens, 160 3D locations, and 45 D-Box/4D screens. The industry has estimated that the opening should see $6 million to $7 million in the box office.
The trailer for Disney’s next live-action film, Cruella, has debuted on YouTube this morning!
Starring La La Land‘s Emma Stone, Cruella tells the story of the rebellious early days of one of cinemas most notorious—and notoriously fashionable—villains, the legendary Cruella de Vil. Set in 1970s London amidst the punk rock revolution, Cruella follows a young grifter named Estella, a clever and creative girl determined to make a name for herself with her designs. She befriends a pair of young thieves who appreciate her appetite for mischief, and together they are able to build a life for themselves on the London streets. One day, Estella’s flair for fashion catches the eye of the Baroness von Hellman, a fashion legend who is devastatingly chic and terrifyingly haute, played by Emma Thompson of Saving Mr. Banks andBrave, among many others. But their relationship sets in motion a course of events and revelations that will cause Estella to embrace her wicked side and become the raucous, fashionable and revenge-bent Cruella. You can watch the full trailer below!
Cruella is currently slated to hit theaters on May 28th, as filming wrapped before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Unlike last year’s releases of Soul and Mulan, there are no current plans for a simultaneous release on Disney+.
With new adventures taking Disney’s live-action films to the worlds of Aladdin and The Lion King, we are excited to hear that we can expect more of these adventures in the future.
Disney’s first ever live-action remake of an animated classic was 1994 effort Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, with future The Mummy and Van Helsing director Stephen Sommers tackling the beloved story from an entirely new angle, although it ended up as a box office disappointment.
The next two were 101 Dalmations and its sequel, which are best remembered for Glenn Close’s wonderfully hammy performances as Cruella de Vil. However, it wasn’t until Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland blew past the most optimistic of projections to rake in over a billion dollars globally that the Mouse House decided to focus on a production line of live-action remakes as a means to capture both the nostalgia crowd and an entirely new generation of fans in the process, and almost $9 billion in earnings later, you can’t say it hasn’t worked.
Somewhat surprisingly, sequels have never played a major part in the studio’s bonanza of remakes, with only Alice and Wonderland and Maleficent getting follow-ups, both of which drastically underperformed compared to their predecessors. That being said, new adventures set in the worlds of Aladdin and The Lion King are both in active development, and we’ve now heard from our sources – the same ones who first told us Jon Favreau’s photo-realistic family film was getting a sequel long before it was confirmed – that as many as three new Lion King blockbusters are in the works. It’s unclear if they’ll all be direct sequels or perhaps one or two spinoffs, but at least one of them is the follow-up to Favreau’s pic.
In any case, as the seventh highest-grossing movie in history, you can understand why Disney would be keen to continue the nascent franchise for as long as possible. There’s no word on whether The Lion King 2 director Barry Jenkins will stick around behind the camera for longer than Favreau did, but if the first sequel comes anywhere close to matching the $1.6 billion haul of the first installment, then we could be seeing plenty more of Simba and the gang for a long time to come.
