Summary

• Cruella's live-action adaptation reinvents her as an antihero, exploring her backstory and motivations in a new light.
• The film focuses more on Cruella's revenge against the Baroness, with a minor dognapping subplot as an Easter egg reference.
• The use of dogs in Cruella highlights their agency and shows Cruella sparing the Dalmatians, creating a positive change in her character.

The villain Cruella De Vil is reinvented in Disney’s live-action film Cruella by eliminating her most heinous and defining trait: her obsession with killing 99 Dalmatian puppies to make a spotted fur coat out of their skin. Similar to Disney’s live-action adaptation of Maleficent, Cruella brings a new perspective to one of Disney’s most iconic villains by exploring exactly how she became the fearsome heiress depicted in 101 Dalmatians. The movie follows Estella (Emma Stone) as she slowly becomes Cruella over the events of the movie, providing an origin story for one of Disney's most iconic villains.

True to its source material The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith, Cruella features a smaller-scale abduction in which Cruella’s henchmen Jasper and Horace (Joey Fry and Paul Walter Ha) steal the Baroness von Hellman's (Emma Thompson) three Dalmatians, but the dognapping is merely an accessory to Cruella’s main priority of revenge. The dognapping, and the use of dalmatians at all, feel more like an Easter egg for fans who know the original story. The real story is how Estella becomes Cruella at all, making it unlikely that Cruella needs to kill any puppies in this version of the story.

Cruella Makes The Titular Character More Of An Antihero

In a sympathetic villain-to-hero reimagining of Cruella's backstory, the movie reveals how Estella Miller, raised by her adoptive mother, Catherine (Emily Beecham), uses her brilliance as a fashion designer to run grifts on the streets of London after Catherine is pushed to her death off a cliff by the Baroness’ Dalmatians. After Estella learns that the Baroness ordered the dogs to kill her mother, it's revealed that Cruella's career of abducting dogs is first initiated by her plans for revenge against the Baroness.

This version of the character might have the animated Cruella's haughty spirit, but she's not really needlessly cruel.

Apart from the casual mention that the Dalmatians would make “fabulous coats,” Cruella never seriously considers killing the dogs and only ever makes a faux fur Dalmatian coat, which becomes one of the biggest fundamental changes to her character. The faux fur use is just one small step in making Cruella an antihero. This version of the character might have the animated Cruella's haughty spirit, but she's not really needlessly cruel.

Why Cruella Doesn't Kill Puppies In Live-Action

Disney likely didn’t make Cruella into a puppy killer because her origin story reinvented her as an antihero instead of an evil villain. In 101 Dalmatians, Cruella wanted to purchase Perdita and Pongo’s Dalmatian puppies because she was a selfish heiress who viewed the puppies as a fashionable commodity to be exploited rather than as innocent living beings.

Disney cleverly establishes the expectation of dog-killing as the ultimate evil that would make Cruella a true villain, but never has her cross that threshold.

While Cruella retains the same characteristics of the original character, Cruella’s bad qualities are framed in a more sympathetic light in Cruella: her fashion sense doesn’t come from unearned wealth, but rather her own genius and hard work. Her bossy and slightly wicked personality is presented as something beyond her control that Cruella inherited from her biological mother, the Baroness.

Even Cruella’s worst actions against the Baroness are inspired by her pure motivation to avenge Catherine's death. Since audiences already know Cruella’s story, Disney cleverly establishes the expectation of dog-killing as the ultimate evil that would make Cruella a true villain, but never has her cross that threshold.

How The Use Of Dogs Is Different In Cruella

Her origin story also becomes more complex as the dogs are given more agency in Cruella. Unlike Disney’s animated classic, which depicted the Dalmatian puppies as innocent victims whose only defense was to flee from Cruella's pursuit, the dogs featured throughout Cruella play a more active role in the plot, which makes them more like human characters with the capability to be good or bad.

Both Buddy and Wink are vital of Estella’s gang and participate in their grifts. The three vicious Dalmatians belonging to the Baroness are indirectly responsible for Catherine's death since they responded to the Baronness's commands. While Cruella could’ve chosen to gain vengeance against the Baroness by turning the dogs into a coat for her fashion show, Cruella’s choice to spare them becomes an act of forgiveness and shows her ability to rise above her more wicked instincts.

...it’s poetic irony that it's Cruella’s comionate streak that created an avenue for Perdita and Pongo to exist.

The end of Cruella also reveals that her decision not to kill the Dalmatians brought about a positive change. In the mid-credits scene, she delivers two of Genghis’ puppies to Roger's (Kayvan Novak) and Anita's (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) homes. Since Cruella takes the liberty of naming the puppies Perdita and Pongo, the introduction of the beloved protagonists of 101 Dalmatians into Cruella’s own standalone universe becomes the direct result of her choice to spare the Baroness’ Dalmatians.

Since the reinvention of Cruella De Vil as an antihero means that the events of 101 Dalmatians likely won't happen in Cruella 2, it’s poetic irony that it's Cruella’s comionate streak that created an avenue for Perdita and Pongo to exist.

Will Cruella Kill Dogs In The Sequel?

It seems unlikely that Cruella will be killing any dogs in the sequel movie. There haven’t been many details about the sequel movie released, though it has been in development since 2021. Even as late as January 2024, Emma Stone called the movie “a work in progress” when speaking with Variety, hoping that the movie would begin shooting sooner rather than later.

Without a finished script or casting announcements, it’s hard to speculate on what the Cruella sequel might actually involve. It’s expected to feature much of the same cast, but with Emma Stone’s Cruella having gifted the very dogs whose puppies she tries to kill in the animated movie here, it seems very unlikely she would choose to kill the dogs. Cruella 2 will have to be more in line with the Maleficent movies, crafting a new version of a familiar story instead of lining up exactly with the animated 101 Dalmatians.

Cruella is clearly the kind of character who feels like the best revenge is her own success in this version of her story, which makes killing animals seem out of character at this point. The sequel could see Cruella’s evil evolve with some sort of other triggering moment, but without something actually pushing her to be murderous, audiences aren’t going to accept this version of Cruella as someone who would kill puppies to make a coat. She’s already made faux fur garments in the first movie, so there’s no reason for her to need the use of real fur.

Cruella 2 would do better to continue pushing the titular character as an antihero instead of making her a more stereotypical Disney villain.