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]
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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]
Martha Tesema, a writer for Mashable, called the film "the best live-action princess remake", writing that it "deserves just as much praise now as it did then."[25] Tesema credits its ethnic diversity with making the film as "enchanting" as it is, continuing that the production "invites you to accept these [characters' races] as just the way they are for a little over an hour and it's a beautiful phenomenon".[25] Furthermore, the writer opined that future live-action remakes should watch Cinderella for reference.[25] In an article for HuffPost, contributor Isabelle Khoo argued that despite the constant remakes that Hollywood produces "no fairy tale adaptation has been more important than Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Cinderella.'", citing its diverse cast, combating of sexist stereotypes often depicted in other Disney films, and empowering themes that encourage children to make their own dreams come true as opposed to simply "keep on believing" among "three important reasons the 1997 version has maintained relevance today."[147] Khoo observed that the film continues to be constantly praised in social media by fans who had grown up with the film for its diversity, concluding, "With so much talk about the lack of diversity in Hollywood these days, Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Cinderella' is a shining example of the diversity we need."[147] Similarly, Elle writer R. Eric Thomas crowned Cinderella "One of the Most Important Movies of the '90s". Describing it as "effortlessly, even unintentionally, progressive", Thomas wrote that the film "forecast a world with far more possibility; it's a film made for the future."[69] Crediting the film with establishing both Brandy and Houston as "icons", the writer concluded that Cinderella teaches "about the limitless nature of storytelling. That in stories, there are no constraints; the only limit is your imagination. And once you learn that, you don't unlearn it", representing its theme that nothing is impossible.[69] Mandy Len Catron, author of How to Fall in Love with Anyone: A Memoir in Essays, believes that the film remains "The only truly diverse version of the fairy tale" as of 2017.[148] Ashley Lee of the Los Angeles Times declared Cinderella "the best example of colorblind casting of a screen musical to date" which "offers a useful template for potential successors", concluding, "the creatives behind Hollywood's current movie-musical boom could learn a thing or two from its clever spin on a classic text."[89]
The TV movie, which first aired on ABC in November 1997, and averaged a huge 60 million viewers, was the third version of the Broadway classic on TV, after two wildly successful versions starring Julie Andrews (1957) and Lesley Ann Warren (1967). But this starred Brandy as the title princess, Houston (also a producer) as the fairy godmother, Whoopi Goldberg as the Queen and Filipino-American actor Paolo Montalban as Prince Charming, making it a pioneer in diverse casting, a touchstone for the millennial generation and a sublime version of the fairytale.
This time around I was more aware of the power of the full-animation techniques, and I appreciated Disney's policy of using unfamiliar voices for the dubbing, instead of the studio's guess-that-voice derbys of recent years. But in other ways the movie still worked for me just as it had the first time. When those little mice bust a gut trying to drag that key up hundreds of stairs in order to free Cinderella, I don't care how many Kubrick pictures you've seen, it's still exciting. 2ff7e9595c
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