SNOW WHITE BOMBS! DISNEY PANICS After HISTORIC BOX OFFICE DISASTER & TERRIBLE REVIEWS!
Well folks, we finally have the answer. After months of terrible press and those infamous interviews by Rachel Zegler, who many say looks like a hammerhead shark, the opening box office weekend numbers for Disney’s “Snow White” are in, and it’s even worse than we imagined – a complete disaster!
“Snow White” opened with a dismal $43 million at the domestic box office. Let me remind you, this film had a budget of $270 million. To even break even, it needs to make close to $700 million. Hitting only $43 million domestically (and around $80 million globally, which is still terrible) is catastrophic. Remember, Disney only gets about half of that ticket sales revenue, meaning they only saw around $21.5 million back on their massive investment in the first weekend.
With a budget north of $250 million, “Snow White” was supposed to be a return to Disney’s roots, with the original 1937 animated “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” being their first animated feature and even paying for their Burbank studio. But this remake has stumbled hard, facing controversy after controversy.
The run-up to the release was plagued by issues. First, there was the bizarre decision to render the dwarves in CGI, which sparked backlash. Then came the endless PR nightmare fueled by the strange and often negative comments from the star, Rachel Zegler. This prompted Disney to even pull back on the film’s premiere.
And let’s not forget the terrible reviews. Critics were largely unimpressed, with reviews currently sitting at a paltry 43% fresh. That’s gone down since initial reports, which is never a good sign. While some Disney live-action remakes have had varying box office performances, “Snow White” seems to be marking a new low. It opened worse than 2019’s “Dumbo,” which took in $46 million, and significantly behind 2015’s “Cinderella” at $67.9 million (and that was a decade ago!).
Worldwide, the opening was $87.3 million, but the real budget was closer to $300 million, not the $200 million some outlets are reporting. The rule of thumb in Hollywood is that you need to double a film’s budget to account for marketing costs. So, with a $270 million budget (likely higher in reality), Disney probably spent well over $500 million on this project. Since they only get about 50% of ticket sales, this movie needs to make over $1 billion, closer to $1.1 billion, just to break even.
Cinemagoers are furious, blasting the movie on social media platform X, calling it “woke” and claiming it’s trying to “brainwash kids”. Many feel the message of the movie is terrible, and some critics even said that while Zegler’s acting wasn’t necessarily bad, the message of the film and her own comments were damaging.
People are saying Disney has gone “woke” and is still trying to push this ideology on our children. They’ve turned a story representing innocence into something dark and evil. A major point of contention is that Zegler herself doesn’t even seem to like the original “Snow White,” and many believe this shows in her performance. Some have even pointed out that the casting doesn’t make sense within the context of the fairy tale, as the evil queen is described as the most beautiful in the land, making her envy of a “plain Jane” Snow White unbelievable.
Adding insult to injury, they even cut the iconic song “Someday My Prince Will Come” because they deemed it not feminist enough for their “girl boss world” reimagining. The movie only made $3 million on Thursday previews, and initial projections of $45-55 million were already disappointing, but the actual $43 million opening is even lower. This puts it below the opening of Disney’s “Little Mermaid” remake from last year, which raked in a jaw-dropping $95 million. Even 2019’s “Dumbo,” which was considered a flop, made more at $45 million despite having a significantly lower $170 million budget.
While “Snow White” did technically rank higher than the previews for Disney’s “Cinderella” remake, its overall performance is shaping up to be one of Disney’s worst opening weekends ever. Initial expectations from box office analysts in February had it opening at $85 million, so it’s on track to make about half of that.
You can’t solely blame a “Disney remake curse” here either, as “The Little Mermaid” clearly demonstrated. It’s hard not to see the impact of the controversies, including Zegler’s past comments where she clearly expressed her disdain for Trump supporters.
This is a very bad situation for Disney, and with final reviews potentially dropping even lower, this could be a historic flop. I honestly can’t think of another Disney movie of this scale that has performed this poorly right out of the gate. Even Marvel’s “Eternals,” which was critically panned, opened higher!
It looks like going woke really does mean going broke. We’ll be keeping a close eye on how this unfolds in the coming weeks. Make sure you subscribe and hit that like button to stay updated on this developing story!
