Wikipedia: The 2015 Disney Film.
Cinderella is a 2015 romantic fantasy film directed by Kenneth Branagh, with a screenplay written by Chris Weitz, and co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures, Kinberg Genre, Allison Shearmur Productions, and Beagle Pug Films. The film is based on the folk tale and is a live action adaptation of Walt Disney‘s 1950 animated film of the same name.[1] It features Lily James as Cinderella, and includes Cate Blanchett, Richard Madden, Stellan Skarsgård, Holliday Grainger, Derek Jacobi, and Helena Bonham Carter.
Development for a live-action reimagining of the original animated film began in May 2010, with producer Simon Kinberg attached to the project. In late January 2013, Branagh signed on to direct, with Weitz hired to revise a script from Aline Brosh McKenna. In November 2012, casting began with Blanchett being the first to sign on; James was eventually cast in the titular role in April 2013. Principal photography began at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England on September 23, 2013, and ended on December 14.
Cinderella had its world premiere on February 13, 2015, at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival and was released theatrically in the United States on March 13, 2015, and in the United Kingdom on March 27 in standard and IMAX formats by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It grossed over $542 million worldwide, becoming Branagh’s highest-grossing film to date as a director. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with many praising the performances (particularly James, Blanchett, and Bonham Carter), Branagh’s direction, musical score, costume design, production values, and faithfulness to the original animated film. It received a nomination at the 88th Academy Awards, 21st Critics’ Choice Awards and 69th British Academy Film Awards, all for costume design.
Madden made his screen debut as a child actor and later began performing on stage whilst a student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In 2007, he toured with Shakespeare’s Globe company as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, a role he reprised in the West End in 2016. His other television and film credits include the lead role of Cosimo de’ Medici in the first season of the historical fiction series Medici (2016), Prince Kit in Disney‘s live-action Cinderella (2015), John Reid in the biopic Rocketman (2019), and a lieutenant in the epic war film 1917 (2019).
James went on to play Natasha Rostova in the period television series War & Peace (2016), and took on starring roles in several films, including the action film Baby Driver (2017), the war drama Darkest Hour (2017), the period drama The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018), the musical Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018), and the romantic comedy Yesterday (2019).
Bonham Carter began her film career playing Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View (1985) and the title character in Lady Jane (1986). Her other films include Hamlet (1990), Howards End (1992), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), Woody Allen‘s Mighty Aphrodite (1995), The Wings of the Dove (1997), Fight Club (1999), Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter series (2007–11), Miss Havisham in Great Expectations (2012), Madame Thénardier in Les Misérables (2012), the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella (2015), and Rose Weil in Ocean’s 8 (2018). Her frequent collaborations with director Tim Burton include Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dark Shadows (2012). Her television films include Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald (1993), Live from Baghdad (2002), Toast (2010), and Burton & Taylor (2013). In 2018, she was confirmed to play Princess Margaret on seasons three and four of The Crown.
Bonham Carter was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours list for services to drama,[1] and Prime Minister David Cameron announced that she had been appointed to Britain’s new national Holocaust Commission in January 2014.[2]
After graduating from the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Blanchett began her acting career on the Australian stage, taking on roles in Electra in 1992 and Hamlet in 1994. She came to international attention for portraying Elizabeth I in the drama film Elizabeth (1998), for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress and earned her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese‘s The Aviator (2004), earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing a neurotic former socialite in Woody Allen‘s Blue Jasmine (2013). Her other Oscar-nominated roles were in the dramas Notes on a Scandal (2006), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), I’m Not There (2007), and Carol (2015).
Blanchett’s most commercially successful films include The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Peter Jackson‘s The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014), Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), the How to Train Your Dragon film trilogy (2014–2019), Cinderella (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Ocean’s 8 (2018). From 2008 to 2013, Blanchett and her husband, Andrew Upton, served as the artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. Some of her stage roles during this period were in revivals of A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya and The Maids. She made her Broadway debut in 2017 with The Present, for which she received a Tony Award nomination.
The Australian government awarded Blanchett the Centenary Medal in 2001. She was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2017.[4] She was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2012. She has been presented with honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from the University of New South Wales, University of Sydney and Macquarie University. In 2015, she was honoured by the Museum of Modern Art and received the British Film Institute Fellowship. Time magazine named Blanchett one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007 and in 2018, she was ranked among the highest-paid actresses in the world.[5]
