Disney's Woke 'Snow White' Remake Suffers Historic Opening Weekend Flop
In what might be the least surprising flop to emerge from Hollywood since Sony tried to make a cinematic universe for Spider-Man without actually including him, it appears that Disney’s live-action “Snow White” is off to quite a sleepy start.
The Disney film in question — no stranger to all manner of controversy (more on that shortly) — debuted Thursday and has now wrapped up its first full weekend in theaters.
And the early returns are nothing to write home about.
Magic mirror on the wall, show us the story that started it all 🪞 Disney’s #SnowWhite is only in theaters March 21, 2025. pic.twitter.com/88u2KkyZh6
— Walt Disney Studios (@DisneyStudios) December 3, 2024
Well, they are worth writing home about, but not for the reasons that Disney would probably want.
Take, for instance, nothing more than the headline of Forbes‘ coverage of the movie’s debut, written by outlet’s the left-leaning Paul Tassi: “Yes, ‘Snow White’ Is Bombing At The Box Office.”
Ouch.
“‘Snow White’ did not impress critics with its 44 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, but even with a higher 74 percent audience score, the movie is in fact currently bombing at the box office, at least according to these initial figures,” Tassi wrote.
According to Tassi, as well as other publicly reported figures, “Snow White” has brought in a meager $87 million in its global opening weekend. Domestically, the film only drew $43 million.
Now, while most people would do unspeakable evil for $43 million, with some proper context, it illustrates just how bad those numbers actually are.
As Forbes pointed out, when it comes to Disney’s domestic revenue for its recent slate of live-action remakes of their classic films, “Snow White” is almost in a league of its own.
Whereas some live adaptations, like “The Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast,” easily eclipsed $150 million domestically, the $43 million from “Snow White” is good for the second-worst domestic opening weekend for a Disney live-action film, ever.
It only beats out the completely unnecessary “Lion King” prequel movie, “Mufasa: The Lion King,” which brought in $35 million domestically in its opening weekend.
And Forbes was quick to point out that whatever post-release success “Mufasa” enjoyed may not be a formula for Disney to bank on.
“There is one thing to note, however, that could be a glimmer of hope,” Tassi noted. “The lowest film on this list, ‘Mufasa: The Lion King,’ opened poorly, but over time, despite being an original production (which probably hurt it at the outset) snowballed into eventually making $717 million worldwide, a huge hit.
“But that feels like an anomaly rather than something that’s going to happen with ‘Snow White.'”
National Review added: “Because the film cost nearly $270 million to produce, it would need to bring in over $600 million to break even after marketing and other expenses.”
Much to the chagrin of the Disney executives banking on this movie, those “other expenses” have included an absolute PR nightmare in the lead-up to the movie.
First, the movie was ripped for the film’s take on the story’s seven dwarfs. The company originally opted to go with regular — albeit eccentric — people in place of the dwarfs, before that move was blasted for not being inclusive enough.
Then, when the movie opted to go with CGI dwarfs closer to the original tale, the poor-quality CGI was promptly critiqued. If only the issues ended there.
The much bigger issue for Disney’s “Snow White” remake is, simply put, the eminently unlikable Rachel Zegler, who just happens to play the eponymous lead of the film.
Zegler has been a migraine unto herself, between her antagonizing (and half-apologizing to) anyone who may have voted for President Donald Trump and her vapid takes on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
(“Snow White” co-star Gal Gadot, an Israeli actress, has also received criticism, though from far-leftists upset that she dared to speak out against the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023.)
But even removing politics and all that it entails, Zegler has shown a remarkable ability to denigrate the source material of the film — not exactly a winning marketing move. In fact, sans politics, this film still wades into controversial culture war issues like turning the original tale into a rah-rah boss-girl feminism nonsense.
Just look at this clip effectively calling the heroic prince of the tale a glorified stalker:
Disney literally hired the most insufferable human alive to be Snow White pic.twitter.com/ikamWovsqS
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 15, 2024
And this post that I felt compelled to include because it’s so side-splittingly accurate:
Prince Immediately Regrets Waking Rachel Zegler With A Kiss After She Starts Ranting About The Patriarchy https://t.co/KWmkTFVc82 pic.twitter.com/G3xcqiiYGH
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) August 17, 2023
Look, anyone with a room temperature IQ could’ve told you that “Spider-Man” movies without the webhead was always a recipe for disaster.
You don’t even need to be that smart to have seen that “Snow White” was always doomed.
In fact, Disney did see it coming, as the company significantly pulled back on its lead-up to the film’s debut.
And now we know why.
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