Disney’s woke “Snow White” is a total bomb so far.
While the live-action remake of the 1937 animated classic was number one at last weekend’s box office, the numbers it put up did little to make up for the movie’s massive $270 million production budget. Early projections had “Snow White” bringing in between $45 and $55 million, which would have been bad enough.
Instead, the movie starring Rachel Zegler in the titular role and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen only earned $43 million, making it one of Disney’s lowest-earning opening weekends for a remake ever. Prior to now, Disney’s live-action remake of “Dumbo” (2019) held that title, earning just $46 million during its debut.
For comparison, Disney’s live-action update of “The Little Mermaid” (2023) made $95 million during its first weekend. Scandal-free “Cinderella” grossed $91.8 million during its opening weekend in 2015 against a $138.3 million budget, per CNN. The Lion King (2019) was the highest earner, with $191 million, while the live-action “Beauty and the Beast” (2017) brought in $174 million.
These results feel inevitable after months of controversy for multiple reasons. First, Zegler went on record saying she didn’t care for the original film and argued that Prince Charming was a “stalker.” The actress made it clear the live-action story would have nothing in common with the “weird” original 1937 love story.
There was also backlash over Disney using live actors to portray the seven dwarves, leading the studio to replace them with CGI. But then, when the trailer was released, viewers described the computer-generated dwarves as “nightmare fuel.” Earlier this month, actors with dwarfism said they would be protesting Disney for replacing them with CGI.
It’s also not helping matters that “Snow White” was mostly trashed by critics and currently has a 44% score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
“Gloss prevails over heart in nearly every scene, and plot beats feel contrived,” a reviewer from The Wall Street Journal wrote.
The New York Times said of the film: “Neither good enough to admire nor bad enough to joyfully skewer; its mediocrity is among its biggest bummers.”
“Presumably one of the reasons to bring actors into remakes of animated classics would be to add a warm-blooded pulse to these characters. Zegler manages that, but everyone else in ‘Snow White’ — mortal or CGI — is as stiff as could be,” said a critic from The Associated Press.
