The co-director of Cinderella reimagining Steps has welcomed Netflix’s decision to take it straight to streaming.

Netflix’s theatrical vs streaming dilemma is always a hot topic – even moreso late last year when it nearly bought Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) – but John Ripa said there are benefits in going direct to the small screen.

“Netflix can reach so many people at once and for this to be available after six years [of production], well you want it to be seen by as many as possible,” Ripa told an Annecy work in progress session, as he responded to a question from Deadline. “I’m excited fo the world to see it all at once, like ‘Bam!’ there it is.”

The Annecy crowd were treated to short clips of the movie today and while Ripa did note that it’s “nice to see it on a big screen,” he added that he is “excited” for his first straight-to-streaming pic.

Netflix tends to take a case-by-case approach on whether to give animated movies short theatrical runs, which allow them eligibility for major awards. The issue reared its head when Netflix nearly bought WBD, which would have led to questions over just how many movies were being taken straight to streaming. In the end that discussion was halted by Paramount’s superior bid.

Ripa and Steps co-director Alyce Tzue talked Annecy through the artistic vision of adapting one of the most epic tales of all time. Steps stars Amanda Seyfried, Bette Midler, Ali Wong, Stephanie Hsu and Nikki Glaser in a fairytale retelling that shows the notoriously ugly stepsisters in a completely new light.

Describing Cinderella as “like the longest project in development ever,” Ripa said early versions of the fairytale go back all the way to the year 7 BC and there have been tonnes of retellings over the years, including an old Italian version that first introduced the stepsisters that are crucial to Steps.

“We needed to understand Cinderella’s legacy,” he added. “What we quickly realized is that the [Cinderella] stories all add to each other. The question for us was what we could bring to that conversation.”

The answer, according to Tszue, was the idea that “everyone deserves their happily ever after,” including those you might initially think are on the wrong side.

Steps therefore “flips the script” on its main character, she said. “I was the only Asian girl in class and felt like I’d never belong,” Tszue said candidly of her motivations behind a movie that has taken eight years to get to screen. It began in development with Amy Poehler’s Paper Kite and was greenlit by Netflix way back in 2020.

Tszue talked the audience through the team’s approach to taking on an animation that has a majority female cast.

“I saw this Tumblr post in 2015 that showed how male [animated] characters had fun variety and female faces look like baby aliens,” she explained. “We wanted to break that pattern. This cast of women do justice to that range.”

The team were speaking at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Netflix content is all over town this week and later today execs will speak about its anime offering.