While Disney, the giant of the entertainment world, continues its strategy of telling the stories of iconic evil characters from a twisted perspective, an unexpected announcement came from the beloved fairy tale hero Cinderella universe. The studio, which added depth to antagonist characters with productions such as “Maleficent” and “Cruella”, this time turns its focus on Cinderella’s famous stepsisters. The new live-action project, named “Stepsisters”, is preparing to tell the classic tale from the other side of the coin, that is, from the eyes of the evil stepsisters.
Big Names Behind the Stepsisters Project According to the information shared by Deadline, Disney has officially started working on the “Stepsisters” movie. Akiva Schaffer, who received great acclaim for his movie “Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers”, will be the director of the project. On the screenplay side, Dan Gregor and Doug Mand are rewriting Michael Montemayor’s draft. The project, produced by Ali Bell, is overseen by executive vice president Jessica Virtue and creative director Cady Stark on behalf of Disney.
This strong team aims to take the “evil character origin story” formula, which Disney has successfully implemented in recent years, one step further. A New Trend in the Footsteps of Maleficent and Cruella This move by Disney is not unprecedented in the world of cinema. In 2014, “Maleficent”, starring Angelina Jolie, achieved a huge box office success of $759 million by turning the villain of the Sleeping Beauty tale into an anti-hero.
Similarly, in 2021, “Cruella”, played by Emma Stone, received full marks from the audience by telling how the cruel character of 101 Dalmatians came to this point. Anastasia and Drizella, the stepsisters in the Cinderella tale, appear as Lady Tremaine’s daughters in the traditional narrative. These two, with Anastasia a little more emotional and Drizella with a more outspoken brutality, are often portrayed as comical and clumsy villains rather than menacing.
In the new film, the palace dreams of these two, their jealousy and perhaps the tragedies they experienced behind the scenes of the tale will be discussed in a humorous manner. Live Action History of the Cinderella Universe Disney has brought the Cinderella story to the big screen in different formats before. The live-action adaptation, directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Lily James in 2015, was a great success with a gross of $543 million.
In that movie, the stepsisters were played by Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger. In addition, the television adaptation starring Brandy Norwood in 1997 is still among the cult productions. With the movie “Stepsisters”, Disney starts a new era in storytelling by placing not only the leading characters but also the supporting characters at the center of the universe. The production, whose release date has not been announced yet, seems to prove once again that fairy tales are not just about princesses “living happily ever after” and that behind every evil lies a story worth telling.
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