Cinderella is a multi-million dollar Disney franchise. The success of the 1950 American animated feature film Cinderella led to two direct-to-video sequel films, a spin-off television series, a musical, several video games, and other merchandise.
Titles[]
Cinderella is a 1950 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the fairy tale "Cendrillon" by Charles Perrault. Twelfth in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film had a limited release on February 15, 1950 by RKO Radio Pictures. Directing credits go to Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, and Wilfred Jackson. Songs were written by Mack David, Jerry Livingston, and Al Hoffman. Songs in the film include "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes", "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo", "So This is Love", "Sing, Sweet Nightingale", "The Work Song", and "Cinderella".
Cinderella II: Dreams Come True is the first direct-to-video sequel to the 1950 Disney film Cinderella. It was made between 1999 and 2001, and released on February 26, 2002. It was followed by Cinderella III: A Twist in Time in 2007. It consists of three segments featuring Cinderella planning a party, Jaq the mouse being turned into a human and living as Cinderella's page boy, and one of Cinderella's brutal stepsisters (Anastasia, the redheaded one in a pink dress) reaching her redemption through falling in love with a young baker, a low-class man of whom Lady Tremaine and Drizella do not approve. Estimated to cost five million USD to produce, Cinderella II: Dreams Come True was Walt Disney Pictures' top selling animated sequel that year, grossing approximately 120 million USD in direct-to-video sales, but the film itself was met with a mainly mixed to negative response from fans and critics alike.
Cinderella III: A Twist in Time is the second direct-to-video sequel to the 1950 Walt Disney Pictures animated classic Cinderella. Canonically it is a continuation of the original Cinderella, rather than Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, though due to its unusual chronological sequencing it acknowledges the events of Cinderella II: Dreams Come True by using some of its characters. The film was released on February 6, 2007 and rated G by the MPAA. The film is directed by Frank Nissen and features the voices of Jennifer Hale and Susanne Blakeslee. For the UK release of the film, it was simply titled Cinderella: A Twist in Time, without mention of it being a sequel. It made its world television premiere on Toon Disney on December 3, 2007.
Television series[]
Sofia the First is a television series featuring the Disney Princesses that premiered in 2013. Cinderella appeared at the special Sofia the First: Once Upon a Princess. It is currently airing on Disney Junior.
Games[]
Cinderella: Magical Dreams is a video game based on the film of the same name. The game was released September 20, 2005. Throughout the game, players can help Cinderella get ready for the Royal Ball, watch as the mice go on a dangerous quest to find material to make Cinderella's dress, help the Fairy Godmother grant wishes, and ballroom dance the night away with Cinderella and the handsome Prince. When the clock strikes midnight, Cinderella must flee the ball and the King's royal guards, as they chase her back to her chateau in an action-packed race against time.
Disney's Cinderella Dollhouse is a point-and-click computer game released by Disney Interactive in 2000.
Cinderella's Castle Designer is computer game to build the castles from 1950's Cinderella.
Disney Princess Enchanting Storybooks is a video game based on the Disney Princess franchise, developed and published by THQ and was released for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS on November 8, 2011.
Meteos: Disney Magic is a puzzle video game co-developed by Q Entertainment and Aspect, published by Buena Vista Games for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console where Cinderella, Fairy Godmother, the Mice, the Birds, Major, and Bruno were in the puzzle game.
Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother appear in the video game Kingdom Hearts and a world based on the film, Castle of Dreams, appears in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. All the main characters sans Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Trimaine, Drizella, Anastasia, Jaq, Grand Duke, Major, and Lucifer appeared, but only characters are not appears in this game like the King, Gus, and Bruno.
Disney Princess is a 2002 adventure video game developed by Art Co., Ltd for the Game Boy Advance. The game has the princesses completing several levels.
Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey is a 2007 video game released for PlayStation 2, Wii, and PC.
Other media[]
Cinderella and other characters appear in the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts around the world as meetable characters in Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, and Disneyland Paris, They also appear in Fantasmic!, Mickey's PhilharMagic, and Dream Along With Mickey.
Common elements[]
Plot elements[]
Cinderella (Ilene Woods) is the much-loved only child of a widowed aristocrat. After deciding that his beloved daughter needs a mother's care, Cinderella's father marries a proud and haughty woman named Lady Tremaine (Eleanor Audley). She, too, has been married before, and has two daughters from her first marriage, Anastasia (Lucille Bliss) and Drizella (Rhoda Williams). Plain and socially awkward, these stepsisters are bitterly envious of the beautiful and charming Cinderella.
The family lives in happiness for several years, until the death of Cinderella's father. After that, Lady Tremaine's true nature is revealed, and she and her spiteful daughters take over the estate, and begin to abuse and mistreat Cinderella, envious of her beauty. She is forced into becoming a scullery maid and made to wait upon her jealous stepsisters and even their sadistic cat, Lucifer. As Cinderella blossoms into a beautiful young woman who is kind despite her hardships, she befriends the animals living in the barn and many of the mice and birds who live in and around the chateau.
At the royal palace, the King is distressed that his son does not intend to marry. The King is determined to see grandchildren, so he and the Duke organize a ball for Prince Charming (William Phipps) in an effort to enable his son to fall in love and marry, with every eligible maiden in the kingdom requested to attend.
When the invitation to the ball arrives, Cinderella asks her stepmother if she can attend. Her stepmother promises her that she may attend to the ball, as long as she finishes her work and can find a suitable gown in time. To consume her time, her stepmother sets Cinderella with a mountain of chores. Her mouse friends Jaq and Gus (Jimmy MacDonald) use Cinderella's stepsister's discarded sash and beads to fix an old gown that belonged to Cinderella's mother. When Cinderella wears her dress just before departing, Lady Tremaine sarcastically complements Cinderella's gown, subtly pointing out Drizella's beads and Anastasia's sash. The angered stepsisters catch on to their mother's implications and tear the gown to shreds before she stops them, leaving Cinderella to run to the back of the garden in tears while her step family leaves for the royal ball without her.
Cinderella's Fairy Godmother (Verna Felton) appears to her in the garden. She bestows upon Cinderella a beautiful blue dress with glass slippers, and transforms a pumpkin and various animals into a carriage with horses. Cinderella departs for the ball after the godmother warns her that the spell will break at the stroke of midnight, meaning that her dress and everything else will change back to the way they were.
At the ball, the Prince rejects every girl, until he sees Cinderella, with whom he is immediately captivated by. The two dance alone throughout the castle grounds until the clock starts to chime midnight. Cinderella flees to her coach and away from the castle, accidentally dropping one of her glass slippers. After the Duke tells the King of the disaster, they plan to find Cinderella with the slipper they recovered during her exit.
The next morning, a royal proclamation is issued, stating the Grand Duke will visit every house in the kingdom to find the girl who fits the glass slipper, so that she can be married to the Prince. When this news reaches Cinderella's household, her stepmother and stepsisters begin hurriedly preparing for the Grand Duke's arrival. Cinderella, overhearing, begins dreamily humming the song from the palace ball the previous night. Upon realizing that Cinderella is the girl who danced with the Prince, Lady Tremaine follows Cinderella up to her attic bedroom and locks her inside.
When the Grand Duke arrives, the mice steal the key to Cinderella's room from Lady Tremaine's pocket and laboriously drag the key up the stairs to her room. They are ambushed by Lucifer, but are then rescued by Bruno, Cinderella's bloodhound, who scares Lucifer out of the house. As the Duke prepares to leave after the stepsisters unsuccessfully try on the slipper, Cinderella appears and requests to try it on. Knowing that the slipper will fit and that Cinderella will marry the Prince, her stepmother trips the footman over while he is carrying the slipper, causing it to drop and shatter into hundreds of pieces. The Duke laments over the broken slipper, but Cinderella then reveals she has kept the other glass slipper, much to her stepmother's horror. Delighted at this indisputable proof of the maiden's identity, the Duke slides the slipper onto her foot, which fits perfectly.
At the wedding, Cinderella and the Prince descend the church's staircase, surrounded by confetti tossed by the King, the Grand Duke and the mice, now in uniform apparently as part of the Royal Guard. The film ends on a scene of the two newly-weds kissing.
Cinderella II: Dreams Come True explores Cinderella's "happily ever after" life as a princess in three stories, with help from the Fairy Godmother. First, Cinderella's awkward first days at the palace, when she tried so hard to fit in that she forgot to be herself. Second, how Jaq felt so left out that he wished to be a human. Third, how Cinderella taught one of her nasty step-sisters how to smile which leads to her own true love.
In Cinderella III: A Twist in Time, Lady Tremaine gets her hands on the Fairy Godmother's wand, then turns back time to the day Cinderella tried on the glass slipper. She enlarges the slipper to fit Anastasia, then erases Prince Charming's memories of Cinderella. Cinderella must foil Lady Tremaine's scheme and win back her prince. In the process, she not only manages to marry the Prince but also manages to repair her relationship with Anastasia save her from her mother's manipulation.
Trivia[]
- This franchise has two separate endings (the true ending and the alternate ending).
- True ending - the shoe serves Cinderella and she marries the prince.
- Alternate ending - the slipper fits Anastasia because Lady Tremaine changed the size, forcing Cinderella to jump into action to restore her happy ending, but Anastasia eventually realizes she doesn't truly love the Prince and decides to let Cinderella marry the prince and seek out her own true love. Cinderella and Anastasia ultimately repair their strained relationship and Anastasia moves into the castle with her.
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