Finding Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella on streaming will no longer be an “impossible” f*at. The groundbr*ak-ing 1997 TV event that relaunched “The Wonderful World of Disney” on ABC, and cemented Brandy as an entire generation’s vision of the Disney princess, is coming to Disney+ this month.
The actress and R&B icon first announced the news about the movie with co-star Whoopi Goldberg during an appearance on The View on Thursday morning. While the film tells the classic tale of a young woman made a housemaid by her w!cked stepmother, who triumph-antly finds a way into the Royal Ball with some unexpected help from her Fairy Godmother,
Its multicultural world — with a Bla-ck Cinderella, and an Asian Prince with a white father and Bl-ack mother — has helped not only make it timel-ess, but age well as a precursor to projects like Hamilton and Bridgerton.
A lot of that came from executive producer Whitney Houston, who handp-icked Brandy to lead the film (an act befitt!ng of her role as Fairy Godmother).
Meanwhile fellow producers Debra Martin Chase, Neil Meron, and Craig Zadan were able to build out the rest of the cast with Broadway powerhouses like Goldberg, Bernadette Peters, Victor Garber, Jason Alexander, Veanne Cox, and Paolo Montalban — as well as the late Natalie Desselle-Reid.
The made-for-TV movie was written by Robert L. Freedman, directed by Robert Iscove, and notably choreographed by Rob Marshall, who’s gone on to direct films like Chicago, Into the Woods, and the upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid.
EXCLUSIVE: @4everBrandy announces on @TheView Rodgers and Hammerstein’s #Cinderella will premiere on @disneyplus February 12!
“We can celebrate and share and inspire a whole new generation to see this wonderful piece,” she tells us. pic.twitter.com/GVqNeM4Cf1
— The View (@TheView) February 4, 2021
Find Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella on Disney+ at the stroke of midnight on Friday, Feb. 12. It will join the platform’s “Celebrate Black Stories” collection with other pivotal films like Soul, Black Is King, and Black Panther.