In the special, Debra Martin Chase, an executive producer for the film, described casting for the movie as "one of the hardest things" she's ever done. She said they decided to do "not colorblind casting, but diverse casting."
In the special, Debra Martin Chase, an executive producer for the film, described casting for the movie as \"one of the hardest things\" she's ever done. She said they decided to do \"not colorblind casting, but diverse casting.\"
Black Cinderella the movie
Brandy likened being hand-selected for Cinderella by a performer she idolizes to a real-life fairy tale,[32] accepting the role because she already had successful singing and acting careers, in addition to relating to the main character in several ways.[33] The fact that Cinderella is traditionally depicted as white did not discourage Brandy from pursuing the role.[34] Having grown up watching Caucasian actresses portray Cinderella, Houston felt that 1997 was "a good time" to cast a woman of color as the titular character, claiming the choice to use a multi-cultural cast "was a joint decision" among the producers,[35] who agreed that every "generation [should] have their own 'Cinderella'."[16] Executive producer Debra Martin Chase explained that, despite enjoying Warren's performance as Cinderella, she and Houston "realized we never saw a person of color playing Cinderella", explaining, "To have a black Cinderella ... is just something. I know it was important for Whitney to leave this legacy for her daughter."[29] Chase hoped that the film mirroring an evolving society "will touch every child and the child in every adult",[19] encouraging "children of all colors [to] dream."[26] One Disney executive would have preferred to have a white Cinderella and black Fairy Godmother and suggested singer-songwriter Jewel for the titular role.[16] The producers refused,[36] insisting that "The whole point of this whole thing was to have a black Cinderella."[16] Zadan maintains that Brandy was the only actress they had considered for the role, elaborating, "it's important to mention because it shows that even at that moment there was still resistance to having a black Cinderella. People were clearly still thinking, 'Multicultural is one thing, but do we have to have two black leads?"[16]
Television writer Robert L. Freedman became involved with the project as early as 1993.[16] Although he had not written a musical before, Freedman was fond of Warren's version and drawn to the opportunity to work with Zadan and Meron, whose plans to remake Cinderella he had first read about in a Variety article.[16] Aware that the film could potentially be groundbreaking, Freedman, Zadan and Meron collaborated on several new ideas for the remake, among them ensuring that Cinderella "was defined by more than falling in love", providing her with her own story arc that is beyond simply finding a love interest.[16] The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization allowed the filmmakers an unusual amount of freedom to modify the musical's script, among these changes making Cinderella a more active heroine;[37] Meron credits Freedman with "giv[ing] her a little bit more of a backbone", ultimately developing the character into a more independent woman.[16] Instead of making each character more modern, Zadan opted to "contemporize the qualities of the characters" instead.[20] Freedman was more concerned with writing a film suitable for young girls in the 1990s than writing a multi-cultural film, inspired by stories about his wife being affected by women's representation in films when she was growing up.[16] In a conscious decision to update the fairy tale for a modern generation, Freedman sought to deconstruct the messages young girls and boys were subjected to in previous versions of the fairy tale, explaining, "We didn't want the message to be 'just wait to be rescued",[38] and thus altered the story to "reflect current ideas about what we should be teaching children."[37] Attempting to eliminate the element that Cinderella is simply waiting to be rescued by the prince, Freedman explained, "I'm not saying that it's the most feminist movie you'll ever see, but it is compared the other versions."[16] His efforts apply to both Cinderella and the prince; while Cinderella pines for independence from her stepfamily and actively disagrees with her stepmother's opinions about gender roles in marriage, the prince protests the idea of being married off to simply anyone his parents choose.[38]
Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella was the first of the three versions of the musical to be shot on film.[27] Principal photography began on June 23, 1997 and was completed over a 28-day period,[13][17][60][61] primarily on stages 22 and 26 at Sony Picture Studios in Culver City, California,[35] which had been the location of MGM Studios during what is now revered as "the golden age of the movie musical."[12] With a then-unprecedented production budget of $12 million, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella is one of the most expensive television films ever made;[21][62] some media publications dubbed the program "the most expensive two hours ever produced for television."[17][37] In September 1997, Disney Telefilms president Charles Hirschhorn identified the film as the studio's most costly upcoming project.[63] According to A. J. Jacobs of Entertainment Weekly, the film's budget was approximately four-times that of a typical television film.[64] Disney granted the producers this amount because they felt confident that the film would eventually make its budget back once it was released on home video.[37] Zadan agreed that "We've only been able to make [expensive musicals] because of the home-video component. The show loses money, and the home video [market] makes back the money that you lose."[65] However, the film's budget is one of the lowest among the contemporary Cinderella adaptations.[66]
The diversity of the cast prompted some members of the media to dub the film "rainbow 'Cinderella'",[13][103][112] Laurie Winer of the Los Angeles Times summarized that the film's cast "is not just rainbow, it's over the rainbow", observing that "the black queen (Goldberg) and white king (Victor Garber), for instance, produce a prince played by Filipino Paolo Montalban" while "Cinderella withstands the company of a white stepsister (Veanne Cox) and a black one (Natalie Desselle), both, apparently, birth daughters of the mother played by Bernadette Peters."[37] A writer for Newsweek believed that Brandy's Cinderella falling in love with a non-Black prince reflects "a growing loss of faith in black men by many black women", explaining, "Just as Brandy's Cinderella falls in love with a prince of another color, so have black women begun to date and marry interracially in record numbers."[34] The Sistahs' Rules author Denene Millner was less receptive towards the fact that Brandy's Cinderella falls in love with a non-Black prince, arguing, "When my stepson who's 5 looks at that production, I want him to know he can be somebody's Prince Charming."[34]
In his book The Cambridge Companion to the Musical, author Nicholas Everett identified Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella among important television musicals that "renewed interest in the genre" during the 1990s,[54] with Playbill recognizing it as "the resurgence of televised movie musicals".[122] According to Zadan, Cinderella's success "helped secure a future for musicals in the 'Wonderful World of Disney' slot", whose film company Storyline Entertainment started developing new musicals for the series shortly afterward, including Annie (1999).[21] Although the stage musical Annie had already been adapted as a film in 1982, the film was considered to be a critical and commercial failure.[123] Inspired by the success of Cinderella, Zadan and Meron saw remaking the musical as an opportunity to rectify the previous adaptation's errors.[123] They enlisted Cinderella's choreographer Rob Marshall to direct and making the orphans ethnically diverse.[123] According to Vulture.com entertainment critic Matt Zoller Seitz, both productions "stood out for their lush production values, expert control of tone, and ahead-of-the-curve commitment to diverse casting."[124] However, the Los Angeles Times' Brian Lowry observed that few of the series' subsequent projects achieved the ratings that Cinderella had, with viewership for later programming being rather inconsistent.[125]
Despite its initial reception, Cinderella has become widely revered as one of the best film adaptations of the fairy tale.[94][99][131] The Daily Telegraph deemed the 1997 adaptation "The final of the trio of classic Cinderella remakes".[27] Both Polygon and Mashable named 1997's Cinderella the best version of the story,[100][132] while Entertainment Tonight ranked the film the third greatest adaptation of the fairy tale.[133] CinemaBlend ranked the film the fourth most charming film adaptation.[66] Highlighting the performances of Montalbán, Peters and Houston, Entertainment Weekly ranked Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella the fourth greatest adaptation of the fairy tale, ahead of both the 1965 (10th) and 1957 (sixth) versions, with author Mary Sollosi calling it one of "the 11 best-known film adaptations of the tale".[43] In 2017, Shondaland.com crowned the film "one of the most inclusive, expensive ... and ultimately beloved TV movies of all time."[16] Kelsie Gibson of PopSugar wrote that the film is superior to Disney's other princess-themed offerings from the 1990s.[47] Den of Geek ranked the film the second best "Cinderella" adaptation, describing it as "the first time the story truly felt magical" and writing "Almost twenty-five years later, this adaptation still feels like the television event it was when it premiered."[134] On February 11, 2021, the day prior to the film's premiere on Disney+, Entertainment Weekly held a virtual reunion with the surviving principal cast members.[135] On August 23, 2022, the cast once again reunited for a television special Cinderella: The Reunion, A Special Edition of 20/20, which was followed by an airing of the film, the first time it has aired on broadcast television in over two decades.[136]
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