Disney has released the trailer for their live-action Cinderella movie, which opens March 2015, a few years late to the reimagined fairy tales party. But unlike Mirror Mirror or Snow White and the Huntsman, Cinderella, with direction by Kenneth Branagh, plays it pretty straight. It’s almost to the point where making it neither a gritty, contemporary, nor musical (or whatever the hell Mirror Mirror was) reimagining actually feels like an original approach. It’s just Cinderella (ella ella eh eh…). And no one makes a sumptuous period piece like Kenny Bronze.
Lily James from Downton Abbey plays Cinderella, with Robb Stark aka Richard Madden as Prince Charming (No one plays a rich dude who marries for love like that dude). Cate Blanchett rounds out the cast as the wicked stepmother (quite an upgrade from Julia Roberts’ ambiguously accented, thoroughly obnoxious queen), who wears awesome costumes and keeps a cat on a leash. Cate Blanchett is such an actress’s actress, I imagine she gets first dibs on any part for a queen or a wicked stepmother or any part where she gets to flamboyantly wave her hands around being imperious.
Anyway, I could do without the cornball music, but I’m excited to see Branagh and the premium cable crew take on one of Disney’s classic tales of a hot young poor girl who sticks it to all her h8rs by marrying a rich dude. And of course, there will be ample opportunity for some clever editor to stick the Red Wedding at the end of this.