Disney's latest remake, Snow White, arrived at the theater on Thursday night as one of the most snake-bit projects in the company's 102-year history. Almost everything that could have been wrong happened, leading to a torrent of negative pre-release advertising.
Did the uproar affect box office revenue?
It certainly didn't help. Based on forecasts from analysts, “Snow White” is closing the weekend, with $45 million on $45 million ticket sales. In the 15 years since Disney has produced live-action remakes of animated classics, theatres have not yet arrived with big names under $58 million after adjusting for inflation. (It was “Dumbo” in 2019.)
“Snow White” was expected to collect another $50 million overseas this weekend. The film costs at least $350 million to make and market (equivalent to “Dumbo” after adjusting for inflation).
Still, Snow White is projected to become the number one film in the US and Canada over the weekend. He played in 4,200 theatres and won $89 million in one week ticket sales for the cinema business, the second-largest cinema business after Disney's Captain America: Brave New World.
Among other new releases, gangster drama The Alto Knights (Warner Bros.) cost around $50 million, excluding marketing, and was at the pace to raise a disastrous $3 million from 2,651 theaters. I received weak reviews.
Magazine Dreams (Briarick), a rough bodybuilder drama starring Jonathan Majors, was expected to win around $900,000 from 800 theatres. As a result, the Hollywood Reporter, known as “The Door,” promoted the film as a comeback car after winning a career when his career was a hit in 2023. The reviews were mostly positive.
“Snow White” split the critics and the audience. According to Rotten Tomatoes, a comprehensive review site, only 44% of reviews. However, among movie fans, Snow White has become even better. Saturday's “audience score” for rotten tomatoes was 71%.
According to Exit Polling, cited by analysts, Latinos accounted for 25% of the audience, with 68% of women.
Based on the 1937 animated classic “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,” Disney films began to become a problem after production in 2021. Disney has been criticized by members of the dwarf community for its creative decisions, including Grumpy, Bashful, Doc and The Gang.
And Rachel Zegler, the film's outspoken star, Latina, became Lightning Rod. Internet users (most men) and some right-wing media outlets criticized her casting, claiming that there is no business in which Columbian actress plays Snow White and that her Disney support is an example of Hollywood's diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Some of them, “waking up and broken,” won victory laps online over the weekend.
But analysts pushed back that theory and said “Snow White” likely struggled at the box office because the underlying intellectual property is old-fashioned. At this point, Disney is re-Murraying most of the more recent animated classics, forcing them to go on to less popular properties in their library, such as “Lilo & Stitch.” The live-action version will arrive at the theater in May.
Audiences are also beginning to get bored of live-action remakes of common animated films, according to analysts who cite the decline in returns at the box office. Disney recognizes this trend and plans to redo Bambi (1942), Sword in the Sword (1963), and Hercules (1997).
Universal does a lot in the live action remake of “How to Train a Dragon” (2010).
When the film arrives at a disappointing ticket sales, the studio says it is always hoping that word of mouth will lead to a larger audience in the next few weeks. In the case of “Snow White,” it may not (just) spin.
“The success of a film depends on whether it gets a 'babysitter effect'” — parents looking for a way to capture young children — “And recently they've played well for several months like 'Mufasa',” box office analyst David A. Gross said in an email on Saturday. “Disney knows how to support their films. This corridor, including spring break, is good.”
