Cinderella III: A Twist in Time

**Cinderella III: A Twist in Time** is a 2007 film directed by Frank Nissen. It is the second sequel to the 1950 film Cinderella and was released on February 6, 2007.

## Plot

Cinderella and the Prince attend a picnic which the Fairy Godmother, Jaq, and Gus have prepared celebrate their first anniversary. Meanwhile, at the Tremaine mansion, Cinderella's stepsisters Anastasia and Drizella are bitterly doing Cinderella's old chores. Anastasia wanders off and stumbles upon the picnic. The Fairy Godmother inadvertently drops her wand, and Anastasia takes it to Lady Tremaine and Drizella, who initially disbelieve the story. When the Fairy Godmother comes for the wand, Anastasia accidentally turns her into a statue.

Lady Tremaine, revelling at a chance to restore her own fortunes at Cinderella's expense, uses the wand to time travel to the day the Grand Duke fitted the glass slipper on Cinderella. She uses the wand to expand the slipper so that it fits Anastasia, and the Grand Duke declares Anastasia the Prince's soulmate. Cinderella arrives on the scene too late, and Lady Tremaine destroys Cinderella's other slipper, the only proof that she was the girl who danced with the Prince on the night of the ball. Determined to set things right, Cinderella follows her stepfamily to the palace with Jaq and Gus.

The Prince initially refuses to believe Anastasia danced with him, but Lady Tremaine uses the wand to alter his memory, and he accepts Anastasia as his fiancée. The mice witness this, and inform Cinderella that Lady Tremaine has the Fairy Godmother's wand. The King is delighted with Anastasia in spite of her clumsy antics and gives her a seashell that once belonged to his late wife. Meanwhile, the Prince begins to realize that he does not feel love for Anastasia despite Lady Tremaine's spell.

Sneaking into the Tremaine’s' room disguised as a palace maid, Cinderella and the mice manage to steal back the wand, but Cinderella is captured by the palace guards before she can use it. Cinderella briefly touches the Prince's hand as she is taken away, and he begins to recognize her. Lady Tremaine orders Cinderella exiled from the kingdom by ship. Jaq and Gus find the Prince and explain the whole story to him; Cinderella's bluebirds then arrive with the repaired other slipper as proof. The Prince intercepts the ship before it leaves and embraces Cinderella; his true memories return, and she accepts his marriage proposal.

The Prince brings Cinderella back to the palace and explains everything to the King and the Grand Duke. The King orders the Tremaine family's arrest, but they escape using the wand. As Cinderella prepares for her wedding, Lady Tremaine returns with Anastasia, who has been magically transformed into a doppelgänger of Cinderella. She also creates a twisted version of the pumpkin carriage with her cat Lucifer as coachman, and traps Cinderella and the mice in it. The three of them fight back against Lucifer and escape on the carriage horse as the carriage rides over a cliff.

Cinderella arrives at the wedding in time to see Anastasia refuse to go through with the marriage, wanting true love of her own and feeling unwilling to take it from another. An enraged Lady Tremaine appears with Drizella, and the king orders her arrest. Lady Tremaine transforms the guards into various animals as they pursue her and is about to turn Anastasia into a toad when Cinderella and the Prince step in to protect her. The Prince's sword deflects the spell, turning Lady Tremaine and Drizella to toads instead.

Anastasia uses the wand to return to normal, and offers the seashell back to the king, feeling she does not deserve it. The King, asserting that everyone deserves a chance at love, allows her to keep it. Cinderella and Anastasia reconcile, and together restore the Fairy Godmother. She considers undoing Lady Tremaine's change of events but sees that Cinderella and the Prince's love has grown stronger thanks to the adventure and decides to let them continue as they are.

During the credits, Anastasia moves into the palace with Cinderella and reunites with the Baker from Cinderella II. Drizella and Lady Tremaine are placed in the cellar and restored to their human forms, but are both now dressed in Cinderella's old rags, much to their horror.

## Cast and Characters

* Jennifer Hale as Cinderella
* C. D. Barnes as Prince Charming
* Susan Blakeslee as Lady Tremaine
* Tress MacNeille as Anastasia Tremaine
* Russi Taylor as Drizella Tremaine / Fairy Godmother
* Andre Stojka as The King
* Holland Taylor as Prudence
* Rob Paulsen as The Grand Duke / Jaq
* Corey Burton as Gus
* Frank Welker as Lucifer

## Music

Michael Weiner and Alan Zachary wrote original songs for A Twist in Time. They also wrote the book and music for Twice Charmed, and served as musical consultants on Dreams Come True. Composer Joel McNeely composed the score for Cinderella III: A Twist in Time. He had previously scored several direct-to-video films for Disney, including Return to Neverland, Jungle Book 2, Mulan II, Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, Lilo & Stitch 2 and The Fox and the Hound 2. Cast as Cinderella's singing voice, Broadway actress Tami Tappan recorded several songs for the film. Actress Hayden Panettiere recorded an original song for the film, "I Still Believe", one of her earliest attempts at establishing music career. The music video was heavily rotated on Disney Channel at the time and appears as a bonus feature on the DVD.

## Production

### Development

Adhering to Disney's then-popular strategy of releasing direct-to-video follow-ups to some of their classic animated films, Cinderella III: A Twist in Time is Cinderella's second sequel, after 2002's Cinderella II: Dreams Come True. Despite being unfavourably reviewed by critics upon release, Dreams Come True proved to be a top-seller on home video, encouraging Disney to commission a third instalment. Whereas Dreams Come True resembled an anthology film containing three self-contained episodes from a cancelled Cinderella television series, A Twist in Time focuses on one contiguous storyline, making no direct references to its immediate predecessor. A Twist in Time was directed by Frank Nissen, who had previously directed the Winnie the Pooh film Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005). Disney approached him to direct "a Cinderella movie" just as production on Pooh's Heffalump Movie was wrapping in 2004. Nissen claims he was not intimidated by the responsibility of directing a Disney property as revered as Cinderella, instead finding the opportunity a daunting but exciting challenge he hoped to learn from. He re-watched Walt Disney's 1950 film several times to obtain story and artistic inspiration.

Some critics and Disney fans protested the announcement of another Cinderella sequel. Addressing the debate surrounding the perceived inferior quality of direct-to-video Disney sequels at the time, Nissen believes the challenge is always attempting to expand upon the original in a meaningful manner: "in the case of Cinderella, she gets the prince, so what else is there to talk about?... how do you make an equally interesting and equally strong story, an equally satisfying story, when everybody kind of knows who the characters are and what's supposed to happen". Nissen opted to ignore the studio's negative reputation, and focus on simply making the best film he could possibly make. Nissen maintains that Disney executives allowed him much creative freedom to fulfil his vision. Despite essentially being an alternate re-telling of the Cinderella fairy tale, the director was not influenced by other revisionist fairy tales of the time. Although A Twist in Time was produced around the same time as Twice Charmed, a Cinderella-inspired stage musical hosted on the Disney Cruise Lines, Disney insists that the film is not a spin-off of the production, despite sharing song-writing team Michael Weiner and Alan Zachary. As such, A Twist in Time does not intentionally borrow elements or characters from the stage production, with Nissen explaining that any similarities between the two are merely coincidental. A Twist in Time was Disney's first direct-to-video sequel to officially contain "III" in its title, despite not being Disney's first direct-to-video sequel to be a franchise's third instalment.

The voice cast consists of a roster of established voice actors Disney typically re-hires to voice their older animated characters, re-using most of the cast from Dreams Come True for continuity. Despite understanding that these character's voices would need to be mimicked based on previous performances, Nissen concerned himself little with the voice acting, trusting "that the actors had the skill and the craft to recreate the voices". Instead, he focused on providing the actors with material that felt authentic to the original iterations of their characters.

### Writing

Cinderella III: A Twist in Time was written by Dan Berendsen, Margaret Heidenry, Colleen Ventimilia, and Eddie Guzelian. Dating back to as early as 1950's Cinderella, Anastasia had always been depicted as Cinderella's marginally less cruel stepsister. Inspired by Anastasia's burgeoning reformation in Cinderella II: Dreams Come True, the writers expanded upon the 2002 film's subplot about Anastasia becoming a more sympathetic, complex character, opting to continue her character development over Drizella's. Anastasia's character arc was the only motif borrowed from Cinderella II, although the baker (Anastasia's love interest in Dreams Come True) makes a cameo in the end credits. The writers believed focusing on a secondary character would in turn offer a more interesting story, as opposed to simply focusing on Cinderella. Due to Cinderella's popularity as a character, Disney wanted to tell a different story that captured the original film's spirit nonetheless. Nissen credits the writers with creating a compelling story, which allowed them freedom to "fine-tune the emotional stuff within that structure, so we didn’t have to worry about solving why something happened or the logic behind how someone was feeling" in order to focus on the more cinematic aspects of the film. He also said producer Margot Pipkin kept the team focused, resulting in few regretted cut scenes in the end, although Nissen wishes the film could have been longer in order to devote more time to new characters and concepts. A subplot revolving around Gus discovering a parallel universe inhabited by mice was storyboarded but abandoned because they felt it distracted from Cinderella and the Prince's relationship. The director attributes the film's shorter run time to general budgetary and time concerns.

There was some discourse between Nissen and the studio over wanting to respect the original film, while updating its themes and characters for modern audiences. He found adapting its leads Cinderella and Prince Charming, the latter of whom plays a much larger role in A Twist in Time, particularly challenging. The director felt very strongly about retaining Cinderella's original qualities despite making her a more modern heroine, believing she remains one of Disney's most beloved princesses "because of who she is ... How she responds to things. Her attitude toward life ... I very, very much wanted to keep that in the modern story". To reflect changes in how society viewed heroines in the 50 years since Cinderella, the character deliberately becomes a more active heroine around the film's second act, deciding to take control and fix her situation herself. Meanwhile, the filmmakers essentially created their version of the prince from scratch, about whom little was previously known due to his limited screen time in the 1950 film. Nissen explained, "We didn't want him too modern so he would appear like a nice guy from the suburbs. I still wanted that romantic kind of quality to the Prince, so it was a very delicate thing". Several writers were recruited to revise Prince Charming's dialogue for the right balance of self-awareness, self-deprecating sense of humour and sincerity. The filmmakers also based Prince Charming's personality on romantic comedy leads, citing actor Hugh Grant as a particular example for embodying "many of the qualities that we wanted in the Prince". Nissen credits C. D. Barnes, who voices the prince, with imbuing the character with "the right mix of classical hero plus modern guy". The character's late mother, who is pictured in A Twist in Time for the first time, was nicknamed "Queen Gertie" during production.

Despite some early discussion about modernizing the stepmother in the vein of the musical Wicked by making her a diva and giving her her own song, Nissen insisted that Lady Tremaine, who he considers to one of the greatest Disney villains ever created, essentially remain the same.

### Animation

Despite having some animation experience, Nissen himself did very little animating on the film, instead focusing on storyboarding and occasionally re-tooling challenging scenes. During the time travel sequences, several scenes that appear nearly identical to the original film were re-drawn for the new film. Nissen explained that the original scenes could not simply be reused in A Twist in Time due to advancements in animation technology, such as aspect ratio, frame format and digitally cel-shading, otherwise colours "would be two or three generations removed by the time we processed it". Nissen decided that animating new material instead would help the revisited scenes appear more seamless in A Twist in Time. Since much of the original film's creative team had passed away or retired by the time production began on A Twist in Time, the director referred to Disney's Animation Research Library for character inspiration and design continuity. Describing Lady Tremaine as the film's most anatomically realistic character, Nissen worked to preserve the character's non-cartoonish appearance in order to truly convey her evil, menacing nature.

The film was completed over the course of two-and-a-half years, beginning in early 2004 and ending fall 2006, which the director described as much faster than a typical animated film. By June 2006, Disney announced that, under the creative direction of Pixar's John Lasseter, DisneyToon will abandon sequels in favour of producing only original DVD content. A Twist in Time was one of Disney's last direct-to-video sequels, shortly followed by The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008). DisneyToon Studios shifted their focus to franchises and computer animation shortly thereafter, with Nissen becoming involved in the Tinker Bell film series.

A Twist in Time was also DisneyToon Studios Australia's final film. The branch was gradually closed while A Twist in Time was still in production, but Nissen and Disney Toon Studios head Sharon Morrill commended the Australian animators for remaining determined to complete the film to the best of their ability, despite it being many of their last. Various departments were shuttered and their employees subsequently laid off once they completed their tasks. Once A Twist in Time wrapped in July 2006, the studio was closed and remaining equipment was auctioned off. The film's end credits include a dedication thanking the Australian studio "for their many years of producing beautiful hand-drawn animation". The film was produced on a budget of $8 million.

## Release

Some critics speculated that Cinderella III: A Twist in Time would receive a limited theatrical release in Europe. The film was released direct-to-DVD on February 6, 2007. Released for a limited time, the film returned to the Disney Vault on January 31, 2008, alongside Cinderella and Dreams Come True. The film was released on Blu-ray on November 20, 2012 in a two-movie collection with Cinderella II: Dreams Come True.

Variety predicted that the film would earn "healthy if not quite humongous sales and rentals". Cinderella III: A Twist in Time topped the national DVD sales chart during its first week of release, selling 80% more copies than its closest competitor, the Academy Award-nominated Flags of Our Fathers (2006). The film retained its top spot and continued to outsell Flags of Our Fathers the following week by twice as much. The film had fallen to second place by the end of the month, but still sold more than twice as many copies as the third place entry Open Season (2006). By 2008, Cinderella III: A Twist in Time had earned more than $80 million, The film has ultimately earned over $92 million, with The Numbers reporting that A Twist in Time has grossed $92,915,486 in video sales to-date.

## Reception

Direct-to-video Disney sequels typically do not have a good reputation among critics and fans of their original works. Cinderella III: A Twist in Time received mostly positive reviews upon release, with critics noting its improvement over its immediate predecessor. The film holds a 75% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on eight reviews, with an average rating of 6.03 out of 10, significantly higher than Cinderella II: Dreams Come True's 11% rating.

Joe Strike of Animation World Network called A Twist in Time "an excellent film, in some ways better than the original, richer emotionally and with characters who transcend their caricatured origins to display depth and personality". Writing for Variety, film critic and historian Joe Leydon described the film as a "Lightly amusing animated vidpic" that "should satisfy its obvious target aud of easily distracted moppets, doting and/or indulgent parents and grandparents, and tweeners who still dream of becoming princesses". He also praised the character development of the Prince and Anastasia, as well the songs. Praising the character developments of Cinderella and the Prince, Common Sense Media contributor Nancy Davis Kho called A Twist in Time a "funny, likable twist on the original Cinderella". John Lasser of Blogcritics called the film "a more than acceptable addition to the Cinderella franchise" but felt its songs were weak. Channel Awesome's Doug Walker called Cinderella III: A Twist in Time one of Disney's "strangest" and "most entertaining" direct-to-video releases. Slate Magazine writer Dan Kois has used Cinderella III to defend the merits of Disney's straight-to-video sequels, after Disney announced production of any further sequels would cease. Kois points out that in Cinderella III, the wicked stepsister (Anastasia), originally an "oafish caricature", finally becomes a fully fleshed-out character, and some of the absurdity of the original film is gently mocked". Ed Perkis of CinemaBlend commended the film for being more imaginative with its plot than most of Disney's direct-to-video offerings, praising the character developments of the Prince, Anastasia and the King. DVD Talk's Brian Orndorf praised MacNeille's performance, writing that the actress "gives a rich, sweet reading of Anastasia that the film eventually comes to rely on in an unexpected way", calling her the film's "gem". Orndorf also complimented Nissen's direction and commended the film for not daring to rival the 1950 film in favour of simply "having fun with itself".

Andrew Scharf of CHUD.com described the film as an "almost decent" but entirely unnecessary sequel, criticizing Disney for continuing to produce direct-to-video sequels that "taint the goodwill of the mostly classic original films". Scharf also found some of the film's self-aware humour "out of place", comparing it negatively to Shrek 2 (2004), but appreciated the lack of musical numbers and screen time allotted to the mice. In a negative review, C. S. Strowbridge of The Numbers found the film predictable and cliched, while criticizing its animation as "terribly flat and lifeless". The writer concluded, "I suppose the movie is serviceable for younger girls. However, there are better options and at a mere 62 minutes and limited extras, it's not worth picking up".

Cinderella III: A Twist in Time has developed a reputation as one of Disney's stronger direct-to-video sequels. Polygon ranked A Twist in Time Disney's second best direct-to-video sequel, while Insider ranked it fourth. Ross Bonaime of Collider declared the film "one of the best direct-to-video sequels Disney made", believing A Twist in Time "pushed the boundaries" like no Disney sequel had dared to prior. In 2022, Bonaime wrote that A Twist in Time represents "a bygone era of Disney, an era where these worlds were open sandboxes that could be explored and tinkered around with. No, it rarely worked to the long-term benefit of the brand, but it was unique and wild in a way Disney rarely is anymore". Bonaime also said A Twist in Time pre-dated Disney's era of releasing live-action remakes that re-examine and deconstruct their classic films, identifying it as a precursor to Maleficent (2014), Cinderella (2015) and Cruella (2021). Anthony Gramuglia of Comic Book Resources cited the film as a standout example of Disney's direct-to-video sequels taking a satirical approach to revisiting their original films: "These irreverent movies have fun with the potential offered by a direct-to-video sequel and tell entertaining, fun stories, assuming, of course, you're up for ridiculous takes on classic Disney films". In recent years, some media publications have compared A Twist in Time's time travel storyline to the superhero film Avengers: Endgame (2019).