How ‘Snow White’ Became Disney’s Costly Misstep
Every Disney fan watched the controversy and poor performance surrounding the latest Snow White remake.
Recent U.K. filings show Disney spent $336.5 million to bring the live-action remake to life, far surpassing its original budget. A combination of factors and finances led to Snow White becoming one of Disney’s costliest missteps.
Box Office Flop
Photo: Disney
Thanks to the U.K.’s Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit, the studio earned back about $64.9 million, bringing net production costs down to $271.6 million. However this couldn’t save the film.
At the box office, Snow White never attracted its audience. It opened to just $87.3 million worldwide, about 13% below projections making a total of $205.7 million and one of the worst-performing openings in Disney’s live-action animated remakes.
Photo: Disney
Using the industry-standard ~50/50 split with theaters, Disney’s share comes out to around $102.9 million.
This shows an estimated box-office loss near $170 million on production alone- this is even before massive marketing costs.
Photo: D23
What makes this flop more significant is the controversy around star Rachel Zegler. Zegler was outspoken from the start, calling the original fairy tale “extremely dated” to attacking Donald Trump supporters after his second election.
Her comments alienated many fans long before the release.
Photo: Disney
The first trailer also didn’t help. Fans watched a beloved animated classic, now altered with CG “dwarfs” mocked as creepy, which racked up over a million dislikes on YouTube.
Producer Marc Platt reportedly tried to calm things down behind the scenes, but the damage to the audience was done.
Live Action Remakes
The irony of this? Disney has 21-live action remakes and is ready to make more.
The studio’s next live-action film, Lilo & Stitch, is a hit, grossing over $1 billion globally. This further proves the format can still work when the creative vision and fan expectations align.
Photo: Disney
We look forward to Disney’s future live-action films and to a movie’s success when expectations align.
Stay tuned and follow along with us at MickeyBlog to stay updated on this and all things Disney.
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Article Source/Feature Photo: Forbes/ Disney
