Snow White is heading for an estimated $115 million loss amid a continued decline at the Box Office. The Disney remake starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot suffered a 66% drop in its second week — with many insisting that the personal stances taken by its lead actors were to blame. Snow White also holds the dubious honour of being the lowest rated IMDb rating of all time with a total score of 1.6 out of 10.
The live-action film was one of the most expensive Disney productions in the past few years and cost approximately $250 million (without taking marketing into account). Production has also posed a logistical nightmare for Disney with a fire on set, filming delayed for two years amid the COVID-19 pandemic and some reshoots affected by the actors’ strike.
Zegler has repeatedly come under fire for “ruining” the movie — from dubbing Prince Charming a ‘stalker’ to cursing President Donald Trump and wishing that his supporters had “no peace”. She also insisted in 2022 (while filming) that the movie was “extremely dated when it came to the ideas of women being in roles of power”. Her casting as Snow White had also prompted years of debate with many outraged that an actor of Colombian descent had been tapped to play a character described in children’s books as being ‘fair as snow’.
“Tens of thousands of people worked on that film and she hijacked the conversation for her own immature desires at the risk of all the colleagues and crew and blue-collar workers who depend on that movie to be successful. Narcissism is not something to be coddled or encouraged,” the son of producer Marc Platt said recently.
Platt had reportedly flown to New York to speak with Zegler after she issued a call to ‘free Palestine’ as an addendum to a post thanking fans after introducing the first official trailer of Snow White. This and other controversial comments had later prompted Disney to hire a social media guru to vet her posts prior to the release of the film.
But its dismal performance at the box office appears to go beyond Zegler’s ‘woke’ comments. The film was made and released amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza war which has left the US deeply divided — with many taking umbrage over the casting of Israeli-born Gal Gadot. Social media posts suggest that many have ‘boycotted’ the film to express their disapproval for the actor who had once served in the Israeli Defence Force. Recent reports suggest that Disney was forced to hire extra security after Zegler’s 2024 tweet calling for a ‘free Palestine’ prompted death threats towards her co-star.
Criticism of the film had continued to intensify ahead of release — especially after the dwarves made their debut on the film trailer. The computer generated characters were dubbed rather creepy by some fans and the trailer eventually became YouTube’s most disliked film teaser. Some fans and critics have also voiced dissatisfaction with seemingly ‘woke’ alterations to the plot and deviations from the original fairy tale.