Taglines: Once upon a time… can happen any time.
A Cinderella Story movie storyline. Cinderella never had it this bad. In A Cinderella Story – a twisted and hilarious update of the classic fairy tale – high school senior Sam Montgomery (Hilary Duff) lives at the beck and call of her self-obsessed step-mother Fiona (Jennnifer Coolidge) and her sinfully wicked step-sisters, who treat her more like a servant than a member of the family.
With her sights set on attending Princeton, Sam finds her less-than-sparkling social life wonderfully complicated when she meets her prince charming online. But when her anonymous cyber soul mate turns out to be her high school’s über-popular quarterback Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray), Sam makes a mad dash back to reality, leaving her cell phone behind just before the clock strikes midnight. Fearing rejection if her secret is revealed, Sam dodges Austin’s efforts to discover the identity of his princess. Will Sam let fear hold her back, or will she find the courage to be herself and claim the life she’s always wanted? Her chance at “happily ever after” depends on it.
A Cinderella Story is a 2004 American teen romantic comedy film directed by Mark Rosman, written by Leigh Dunlap and stars Hilary Duff, Chad Michael Murray, Jennifer Coolidge and Regina King. A modernization of the classic Cinderella folklore, the film’s plot revolves around two Internet pen pals who plan to meet in person at their high school’s Halloween dance. The film was released on July 16, 2004. While it received negative reviews from critics, the film was a box office success, grossing $70 million against its $19 million budget, and spawned three straight-to-video sequels.
In its opening weekend, the film grossed $13,623,350 in 2,625 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #4 at the box office, behind I, Robot, Spider-Man 2 and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. By the end of its run, A Cinderella Story grossed $51,438,175 domestically and $18,629,734 internationally, totaling $70,067,909 worldwide.
A Cinderella for the 21st Century
We all remember the story from our childhoods. Poor orphaned Cinderella, forced to carry water from the well and sweep the dirt floors of her evil step-mother’s dreary cottage every day while dreaming of a handsome prince who would rescue her from her life of toil to go live in his drafty old castle. Very medieval. Plus, there was a fairy godmother sprinkling pixie dust, a pumpkin morphing into a golden coach and a lot of talking mice. Okay and this relates to real life, how?
But wait – What if it’s 2004 and our princess-in-the-rough is a high school senior like Sam Montgomery, and instead of chopping wood for the family hearth she’s bussing tables and scrubbing the linoleum floors of her heartless step-mother’s tacky 50s diner after school and running errands for her nasty, spoiled step-sisters?
What if she’s not looking for a handsome prince, per se (not that she’s opposed to the idea), but studying for the SATs and dreaming of Princeton and her future beyond the San Fernando Valley? And what if, instead of magic pumpkins and chatty rodents, she gets one very cool, no-nonsense fairy godmother who encourages this modern Cinderella to find the strength within to be herself and realize the kind of life that, well, fairy tales are made of?
Producer Clifford Werber, who originated and developed the idea of a “smart, contemporary Cinderella story with comedic parallels to the classic,” notes that the enduring appeal of the original is its “heart and soul, the ultimate wish-fulfillment fantasy and an underlying message of empowerment. In that sense it’s as relevant today as when it was first introduced.”
Without losing any of the story’s time-honored elements, A Cinderella Story transports the action to a suburban high school, where, appropriately enough, most young people first begin to grapple with the issues of identity, loyalty and integrity the Cinderella tale traditionally touches upon. Lest that sound a bit solemn, fear not, as Werber attests: “First and foremost, it’s a comedy.”
Werber, whose Hollywood career includes tenure as a film executive at both Warner Bros. Pictures and 20th Century Fox through the 80s and 90s, has worked on films across a range of genres from Home Alone and Grand Canyon to Braveheart, Trainspotting and My Dog Skip, but found himself happily breaking new ground as a producer on A Cinderella Story. “Having always been on the other side of the fence, I’d never been involved with a film completely from start to finish,” he says, good-naturedly adding that one of the film’s messages of “fortitude, and sticking with your instincts, could easily apply to a producer’s job.” It helped that he was collaborating with an old friend, producer Dylan Sellers, “whose expertise was invaluable.”
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
A Cinderella Story (2004)
Directed by: Mark Rosman, Susan Duff
Starring: Hilary Duff, Chad Michael Murray, Jennifer Coolidge, Julie Gonzalo, Regina King, Lin Shaye, Madeline Zima, Andrea Avery Ray, Mary Pat Gleason, Erica Hubbard
Screenplay by: Leigh Dunlap
Production Design by: Charles William Breen
Cinematography by: Anthony B. Richmond
Film Editing by: Cara Silverman
Costume Design by: Denise Wingate
Set Decoration by: Jeffrey Kushon
Art Direction by: Gary Diamond
Music by: Christophe Beck
MPAA Rating: PG for mild language and innuendo.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: July 16, 2004
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