The Walt Disney Co’s live-action, controversy-bedevilled Snow White opened in US and Canadian theatres with a sleepy US$43 million (S$57.4 million) in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday (Mar 23).
With a budget above US$250 million, Snow White had set out with higher ambitions, particularly since it returns Disney to its very origins. The 1937 original Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs was the company’s first animated feature, and paid for its Burbank studio lot.
But this Snow White struggled to find anything like a fairy tale ending. The runup to release was plagued by controversies over the film’s handling of the dwarfs, who are rendered in CGI, and backlashes over comments by its star, Rachel Zegler. The PR headaches prompted Disney to pull back on its premiere.
Also working against the film, directed by Marc Webb: Poor reviews. Critics were largely not impressed with Disney’s latest live-action remake, with reviews coming in just 43 per cent “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes.
There’s been a wide variance between the box-office performance of other “live-action” Disney remakes, but Snow White might mark a new nadir. Jon Favreau’s photorealistic The Lion King (2019) didn’t have great reviews, either, but grossed more than US$1.6 billion worldwide. Snow White opened worse than Dumbo (a US$46 million opening in 2019) and well shy of Cinderella territory (US$67.9 million in 2015).
Overseas, Snow White added US$44.3 million for a global launch of US$87.3 million. But going into the weekend, Snow White had been eyeing a worldwide total closer to US$100 million – and a few weeks back, expectations were significantly higher.
The result will surely add to questions over Disney’s long-term strategy of mining its vault for live-action remakes. In the pipeline are upcoming new versions of Moana and Tangled. A live-action Lilo & Stitch launches in May.
Efforts to modernise Snow White, though, quickly ran afoul. In 2022, actor Peter Dinklage criticised the remake plans as “backward”. Disney ultimately opted to drop “and the Seven Dwarfs” from the original’s title, and animate the dwarfs. Some right-wing commentators targeted Snow White and Zegler’s casting as an overly “woke” production. Delays and reshoots also ran up costs.
Disney, though, has recently steered a handful of films from modest starts to enviable final hauls. The Barry Jenkins-directed Mufasa: The Lion King opened with US$35.4 million domestically, but ultimately surpassed US$717 million worldwide. Snow White will face little direct competition in the coming weeks. Audiences gave it a “B+” CinemaScore.
Warner Bros’ Alto Knights, a period gangster film starring Robert De Niro in both lead roles, was a total misfire. The Barry Levinson-directed film, which cost about US$45 million to make, opened with just US$3.2 million from 2,651 theaters. The flop of Alto Knights followed another misfire for Warner Bros with Bong Joon Ho’s big-budget sci-fi Mickey 17. In three weeks, it’s tallied US$40.2 million domestically against a US$118 million budget.
Magazine Dreams, starring Jonathan Majors as a disturbed aspiring bodybuilder, opened with US$700,000 for Briarcliff Entertainment in 815 locations. The film was dropped by Searchlight Pictures after Majors was convicted of two misdemeanour counts of assault and harassment against Grace Jabbari, his ex-girlfriend. Majors avoided jail time but was given a year of probation.
The disappointment-filled weekend added to a rough 2025 so far for Hollywood. The box office is down 6.9 per cent from last year, according to data firm Comscore, and 38.6 per cent from 2019.
