Remake of one of the most famous fairy tales of Disney’s “Snow White” with live actors, collected for the first weekend box office 13% less than forecasts – $ 87 million, for the second weekend sagged in collections by 66% – to $ 14.2 million. This is very sad, states the portal Forbes, trying to understand the reasons for the failure of one of the most famous fantasy stories of all time.
The creation of the remake could not be called a fairy tale. Filming was delayed for two years due to the pandemic, but as soon as work on the movie began, lead actress Rachel Zegler bombarded the 1937 animation classic with criticism. She compared the main character Prince Charming’s behavior to that of a “stalker” and described the film as “extremely outdated when it comes to ideas about women being able to play power roles.”
Criticism of the movie intensified after the first trailer emerged featuring computer-generated dwarves, which critics described as creepy copies of the cute and charming characters from the original cartoon. The trailer became the most disliked movie announcement on YouTube, garnering almost half a million dislikes and only 68 thousand likes.
Even more negative was the post of the performer of the role of Snow White, who decided to thank fans for watching the trailer and attributed:
“Always remember – freedom to Palestine”.
According to Variety, the producer of the movie Mark Platt even specially flew to New York, trying to persuade Zegler to delete this post, but it is still preserved in her social network.
Later, the actress issued a scolding tirade against supporters of MAGA (Make America Great Again) and the new president Donald Trump.
Amidst all these circumstances, the movie’s rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is only 41%, suggesting that the driving force behind its poor performance is the level of the movie.
Against this backdrop, the question becomes whether Disney will be able to recoup the money invested in the filming of Snow White. That said, the topic of Hollywood movie financing has traditionally lacked transparency.
According to the latest documents, by December 31, 2023, the total cost of production of the picture amounted to $ 269.4 million, in post-production and reshoots of episodes costs increased to about $ 300 million. However, the British government reimbursed $ 55.5 million, which reduced the amount of net costs for “Snow White” to $ 213 million, excluding advertising costs.
The publication believes that “Snow White” needs to collect at least $ 427.8 million at the global box office, while this seems to be an elusive goal.
Disney premiered “Snow White” starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, who played the Evil Queen, in a truncated format amid controversy between the actresses and the rise of President Donald Trump.
It premiered in Hollywood on March 15, but there was no traditional red carpet for such events with hundreds of media representatives, numerous interviews with the creators and actors.