‘Cruella’ Receives PG-13 Rating for Violence and Themes

Disney’s upcoming live-action film Cruella has received a PG-13 rating for some violence and thematic elements.

Emma Stone plays Estella’s role, whom Disney fans know as the main 101 Dalmatians villain, Cruella de Vil. The movie takes place in 1970s’ London and will narrate Cruella’s backstory. Estella begins her career as a fashion designer and ends up becoming smitten with Dalmatians and their fur pattern.

Cruella also stars Emma Thompson as Baroness Von Hellman, Estella’s boss, and features Paul Walter Hauser and Joel Fry as Cruella’s henchmen.

FilmRating.com (via Forbes) lists the villain-centric Cruella as rated PG-13. This rating comes from the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA) board of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). The rating is unusual because it is a Disney film and because the freshly-released trailer doesn’t show any violence.

The nearest the Cruella trailer comes to violence is when a car drives through a storefront, and a building is shown in blazes, most likely thanks to Cruella.

However, Cruella is not the first live-action Disney feature to receive a PG-13 rating. The recent remake of Mulan also received the same designation. While this was not too unexpected, as the latter deals with war and swordfights, it will be interesting to discover what Cruella will involve. A description like “thematic elements” is rather ambiguous.

Still, since the movie is set to illustrate the events that led to Cruella de Vil becoming obsessed with dogs’ skins, particularly dalmatians, Cruella could get a bit dark as the character gradually evolves into the ruthless and petrifying legend that we all love to hate.

The movie is scheduled to premiere on May 18, 2021. It’s still uncertain whether the movie will get a conventional theatrical release or a streaming release on Disney+. With the recent progression of the pandemic, this film will probably come out both in theatres and on streaming services.

It’s also likely that Disney+ might charge subscribers an extra $29.99 to stream the movie on its platform via its Premier Access program. This was their strategy for both Mulan and Raya and the Last Dragon.

About Cruella

Cruella is a 2021 American crime comedy film based on the character Cruella de Vil, introduced in Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians and Walt Disney’s 1961 animated film One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

The live-action adaptation stars Academy Award-winning actress Emma Stone as Cruella, with Emma Thompson, Joel Fry, Paul Walter Hauser, Emily Beecham, and Mark Strong in supporting roles. A sequel is in development at Disney.

Set amidst 1970s London during the punk rock revolution, Estella (Stone) moves to the bustling city with dreams of establishing herself as a fashion force. However, when she catches the eye of celebrated designer Baroness von Hellman, Estella unleashes her fiery inner persona to get ahead. With her thief friends by her side, Estella’s ambitions will take a sinister turn when she gets obsessed with Dalmatian furs and becomes the antagonistic villain of the original Disney movie.

In August 2021, it has been confirmed that Emma Stone will be returning for a sequel with Craig Gillespie and Tony McNamara, the first film’s director and writer respectively. No other cast, release date or plot details have been revealed.