If it’s a day that ends in Y, it must be a day where a male director has gotten a job he’s not qualified for. As THR reports, first-time film director Alex Timbers is in negotiations to direct Disney’s live-action adaptation of “101 Dalmations” which will focus on the origin story of villain, Cruella de Vil. “Cruella,” as it’s titled, is supposedly set to star Emma Stone as the famous villain.
Timbers is the co-creator of Amazon’s “Mozart in the Jungle” and has directed theater, but has no film or TV directing experience or background that we can find, other than the HBO special of “The Pee Wee Herman Show,” which was an on-stage production.
Timbers indeed has an impressive theatrical resume, having directed “Peter and the Starcatcher,” “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” and the “Rocky” musical. But why hire this guy over any number of female directors in the film industry who would love this opportunity and are fully qualified to take on the job?
At this point, the pattern is getting somewhat ridiculous, especially when it comes to films that are female-centric. Just this week we reported that Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn female villain comic book movie had hired a male director.
It simply sounds like Disney is perfectly willing to trust men with little to no experience, but won’t trust women who have tons. As Uproxx detailed, “David Lowery, director of this year’s “Pete’s Dragon,” worked on shorts and indies before nabbing that live-action remake. Just a few years earlier Robert Stromberg got his first ever directing job on the live-action “Maleficent” starring Angelina Jolie. His previous credits were in visual effects. Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, who are directing the next “Pirates of the Caribbean” film “Dead Men Tell No Tales” both have very short resumés, mostly abroad. “Cars 3” was directed by Brian Fee. His experience? He was a storyboard animator on the first two films. This is his first directing gig.” We do give them props for hiring Ava Duvernay for “A Wrinkle in Time” and Mira Nair for “Queen of Katwe”, but both those women have had lots of experience.
In Disney’s other properties, such as Marvel and the Star Wars franchise, there has still been zero improvement. No woman has been hired to direct a Marvel film, though it’s said that they are looking for one for the Brie Larson-starring “Captain Marvel.” And though Kathleen Kennedy insists that they are looking for a woman to bring into the Star Wars franchise, that doesn’t mean that the reasoning behind the fact that hit hasn’t happened already isn’t a cop out of an excuse.
“Cruella” is just another film in Disney’s long-line of properties that seem to be ignorantly keeping female directors away from their films.
