The Walt Disney Company, the most financially successful entertainment conglomerate in history, laid an egg with its latest blockbuster live-action/animated hybrid "Snow White." It's not the first time that Disney produced a clunker. In a business that is essentially "hit or miss," and where misses are far more common than hits, Disney's formulaic approach to the business of making movies failed them.
It wasn't the story. A classic reimagining of the pioneering full-length 1937 feature cartoon was always going to be a crapshoot, but not because of the classic tale of the girl, the evil queen, and the handsome prince.
The film was a huge gamble because audiences were going to be expecting a fairy tale and instead got a political statement.
The opening box office says it all. The movie made just $3.5 million in Thursday previews and is projected to earn $45 to $55 million during its opening weekend. This is far below the usual boffo $100 million openings for Disney films that are supposed to be hits.
The controversies over dwarfs ("magical creatures") and a lead actress who suffered from continuous hoof-in-mouth disease doomed this supposedly family film before it even hit the theaters. Families don't like controversy, and Rachel Zegler's outspoken views on Palestine and women's issues were better left unsaid. In fact, the overriding question of WWWD ("What Would Walt Disney Do") with a loudmouth actress who freely shared her political views isn't hard to imagine. Disney wanted the public image of Walt Disney characters to be squeaky clean and without a hint of controversy. Zegler would have been handed her walking papers at the first hint that she was going to offend someone.
A review by the Daily Mail's Brian Viner gave the film a pitiful two stars, calling it "a painfully muddle-headed affair."
"Disney's contorted attempts not to offend anyone have somehow managed to offend everyone," Viner wrote.
True dat.
Kevin Maher, chief film critic of The Times of London, told readers, "Believe the anti-hype. It’s that bad."
Maher pulled no punches.
"It represents a new low for cultural desecration and for a venerable 102-year-old entertainment company that now looks at its source material with a pinched nose of disgust," the review read.
"Rachel Zegler is watery and ineffectual while Gal Gadot attempts to vamp it up in a sanctimonious reboot that marks a new low. Bring a sick bag," Maher wrote.
Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 43% rating, while the Internet Movie Database gave it an anemic 2.3 out of 10.
Even the wokest British website, The Guardian, trashed it, calling "Snow White" a "pointless new live-action musical" and a "merch enabling money machine."
The highly-anticipated release of Snow White comes after years of a media firestorm surrounding the film.
Critics of the remake first jumped on Disney for the decision to cast Zegler in the role due to her Colombian ancestry.
In the original fairytale, the princess is given her name because her skin is "as white as snow."
Zegler previously said that the origin story has changed, and in Disney's new version the princess earns the name due to a snowstorm she survived as a child.
The lead came under fire for criticizing the 1937 animation, calling it "dated" during a red carpet interview with Extra TV in 2022.
"There's a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird. So we didn't do that this time," she said.
"We have a different approach to what I'm sure a lot of people will assume is a love story just because we cast a guy in the movie."
Box Office Pro reports that a projected total gross for "Snow White" would be $85 million in the U.S. with a $45 million opening weekend. Given the $250 million cost of making the film, not including marketing costs, "Snow White" is in danger of being one of the biggest flops in Disney's history.
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