"Snow White" And The Media Spin

Disney's new Snow White had a terrible opening weekend, with only $43 million in domestic box office revenue and $44 million overseas. The domestic box office revenue was the worst for a live-action remake since 2019's Dumbo remake which brought in $46 million in its opening weekend--$57 million when adjusted for inflation. Given a rumored production cost of $270 million (not including marketing costs estimated to be another $100 million) and that theaters will keep roughly 50% of the revenue, the film is unlikely to turn a profit for Disney. This is what Forbes refers to as "bombing" at the box office. 

    But you wouldn't know that if you relied on the Associated Press or Variety, which both described the film as opening with a "sleepy" $43 million (apparently reading from the same script). 

    The excuses offered for the poor performance is also interesting. The AP was at least honest enough to acknowledge that "[t]he 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," as well as complaints that it was too woke. (I suspect that inclusion of dwarfs at all was a last minute addition: they apparently are only briefly shown in the film and aren't part of the film's title. Rather, Snow White's compadres in this film are a troop of diverse bandits hiding in the woods. I think that the bandits were supposed to take the place of the dwarfs, and that it was the mocking that Disney received when photographs were leaked of the bandits that prompted reshoots to include dwarfs as well).  

    Variety outright denies that the controversies surrounding the film had anything to do with its lackluster opening, suggesting instead that "families are tiring of Disney’s live-action remakes."

    Forbes simply reasons that the poor opening is because "[t]he movie is bad, it’s adapting a 1937 film and not one of Disney’s most popular ones, despite the wide reach of the character. Not a recipe for success, and it has not found any so far."

     The Hollywood Reporter has some interesting evidence to support the notion that the controversy surrounding the film, including accusations of it being woke, did not play into its poor performance. 

    According to a poll conducted by Steve Buck’s research firm EnTelligence, 63 percent of ticket sales for family and animated films generally come from blue states, while 37 percent come from cinemas in red states. In the case of Snow White, it overindexed in red states at 40 percent.

    The pattern for general audience followed the same trajectory. Cinemas in blue states generally account for 67 percent of all ticket sales, while red states account for 33 percent. In the case of Snow White, blue states came in behind the norm at 60 percent of all sales, while red states accounted for 40 percent.

 Translation: the liberals disliked the film more than conservatives. But there is also this: "only 50 percent of kids said they would tell their friends to see the film right away." Ouch! 

    Deadline has the interesting take that it is simply because the story is too old and too dark for modern audiences (notwithstanding the current popularity of distopian fiction).

    But there’s another thing when it comes to Snow White, and it has nothing to do with controversy, rather her age, that being in Disney years, 88 years old. How does Little Mermaid, which also endured a ton of male online vitriol over the casting of its lead, in that case, Halle Bailey, open to $95.5M over 3-days and do a 3x multiple a near $300M domestic? How does Little Mermaid get away with it and Snow White can’t? 

    As we pointed out with Dumbo, these live-action takes of older, vintage Disney musicals and animated movies –i.e. Maleficent, Cinderella, 101 Dalmatians, they just open lower. They have darker, colder, classical themes, which don’t play to today’s massive female audience.

John Nolte eviscerates this excuse in his piece at Breitbart, noting that 101 Dalmatians opened to $33.5 million in 1996, which is $68 million in today's dollars; and the 2015 Cinderella opened to $68 million domestic, the equivalent of $92 million today.  He concludes: "Hollywood will never repair itself because no one will ever accept the truth about why Snow White bombed, even though everyone knows: 1) Disney and Zegler alienated Normal People, and 2) the movie sucks."

    Finally, Slash Film combines a bit of each coming up with 5 reasons the film bombed at the box office:

1. Audiences and critics were underwhelmed by the movie;
2. It was too expensive (which is why, even though it was by far the highest grossing movie this past weekend, it is still a failure);
3. It was mired in controversy over the casting of Ziegler as Snow White with all sorts of explanations why "fair" and "Snow White" didn't mean the character had white skin, and the opposing political positions on Gaza taken by the two lead actresses; 
4. The classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs isn't as popular a story as newer animated films; and,
5.  Viewing habits have changed.

 On the latter point, the article points out that:

 Five years ago, the pandemic forced theaters all around the world to close. The recovery has been slower than anyone expected and thanks to the advent of VOD, the rise of streaming, and 4K TVs being cheap, among other things, we may never reach pre-pandemic levels of box office again. Case in point, 2025's box office is already trailing 2024 at this same juncture, which was itself trailing well behind 2023. We're headed in the wrong direction and movies that once seemed like sure bets are no longer automatic hits.