Today In Disney History ~ February 13th
Cinderella is a 2015 American romantic fantasy film, directed by Kenneth Branagh, with a screenplay written by Chris Weitz. The film is based on the eponymous folk tale and inspired by Walt Disney’s 1950 animated film. The film stars Lily James as the titular character with Richard Madden, Cate Blanchett, Stellan Skarsgård, Holliday Grainger, Derek Jacobi, and Helena Bonham Carter. It is produced by David Barron, Simon Kinberg and Allison Shearmur for Walt Disney Pictures.
Cinderella had its world premiere on February 13, 2015, at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival and was released in theaters on March 13, 2015. It grossed over $543 million worldwide, becoming Branagh’s highest-grossing film to date, and received mostly positive reviews. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design at the 88th Academy Awards.
Three-time Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell was in charge of the costumes for the film. Powell began working on concepts for the characters’ looks almost two years before principal photography began in the summer of 2013. Powell said she was aiming for the look of “a nineteenth-century period film made in the 1940s or 1950s.”
For the stepmother and stepsisters, Powell had a very clear idea about the look; “They are meant to be totally ridiculous on the outside—a bit too much and overdone—and ugly on the inside.” The silhouette of the prince came from the original animation, however she created a more fitted look and less masculine colors. Some of the prince costumes were dyed to accentuate Madden’s eyes.
The ball gown was inspired by the Disney animated film in its color and shape; “The gown had to look lovely when she dances and runs away from the ball. I wanted her to look like she was floating, like a watercolor painting.” The dress was made with more than a dozen fine layers of fabric, a corset and a petticoat. Nine versions of the Cinderella gown were designed, each with more than 270 yards of fabric and 10,000 crystals. It took 18 tailors and 500 hours to make each dress.
The wedding dress was another difficult project. “Creating the wedding dress was a challenge. Rather than try to make something even better than the ball gown, I had to do something completely different and simple… I wanted the whole effect to be ephemeral and fine, so we went with an extreme-lined shaped bodice with a long train”, said Powell. It took 16 people and 550 hours to complete the silk-organza, hand painted dress. While the crew photographed James in the gown, the actress stood too close to an electric heater and the dress caught on fire; the top layer of the dress had to be redone because only one wedding dress was created due to time and budget constraints.
For the glass slipper, Powell took inspiration from a 1950s shoe she saw in a museum. Since glass does not sparkle, they decided to use crystal instead. Swarovski partnered with Disney to make the famous shoe. Powell went directly to Swarovski headquarters in Austria to meet the product developers. It took 6 digital renderings of the shoes until they found the right one for the film. Swarovski made eight pairs of crystal shoes for the film, though none were actually wearable. Consequently, the leather shoes James wore on set had to be digitally altered into crystal. Alongside the slipper, Swarovski provided more than 7 million crystals that were used in costumes and 100 tiaras for the ball scene
Cinderella grossed $201.2 million in the US and Canada, and $342.4 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $543.5 million against a budget of $95 million It is the twelfth highest-grossing film of 2015 in any genre. The film had a worldwide opening of $132.45 million, and an IMAX opening of $9 million. Deadline.com calculated the net profit of the film to be $164.77 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues for the film
TMSM Today in Graphic by Sherry Rinaldi DeHart; Wiki
Michele also contributes theme park news for Fox 35 Orlando 11pm news and on the radio on WDBO.
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