Why Snow White Bombed At The Box Office

Disney's live-action remake of "Snow White" made just $42.2 million over its opening weekend, a far from ideal debut for a film that cost at least $269 million to make. This means it raked in even less than the live-action remake of "Dumbo" managed over its first weekend in 2019, and that was seen as a dreadful opening. While it's still early days, it's already clear that "Snow White" won't make anywhere near enough to break even.

Many online will undoubtedly view these dismal numbers as a symptom of the various "Snow White" movie controversies that plagued the production long before the finished film dropped in cineplexes. However, one could argue that behind-the-scenes matters don't tend to sway general moviegoers, which means "Snow White" had graver problems informing its abysmal opening weekend.

Some modern Disney remakes have basically been licenses to print money, so what exactly went wrong this time around? This live-action update of the very first title in the Walt Disney Animation Studios canon had countless problems to contend with in getting audiences to care about it. Some of these problems were external ones that nobody at the House of Mouse could control, while others were ingrained into the production's very DNA. Here's why "Snow White" bombed so hard at the box office.

In May 2019, Marc Webb was announced as the director of "Snow White," a job that would consume the next six years of his life. His lengthy commitment to this project speaks to a problem that plagued the film: endless delays. Once set to start shooting in July 2020, "Snow White" wouldn't begin filming until March 2022, three years before its theatrical release. An original March 2024 release date vanished amid the Hollywood strikes of 2023, thus ensuring it wouldn't arrive until March 2025.

The film had so much build-up that people seemingly got tired of waiting for it. For comparison's sake, there were less than three years between Disney announcing the "Lion King" remake and its July 2019 release. The first casting announcements for the "Lilo & Stitch" remake were made just two years prior to its planned May 2025 debut. Rachel Zegler was cast as Snow White a whopping four years before she appeared as the iconic Disney princess on the big screen, so things took a lot longer than other Disney projects.

Those delays were partially inescapable thanks to external factors Disney couldn't control, like COVID-19 shutting down the entertainment industry. However, maneuvers like releasing a controversial image of the CG dwarfs 17 months before the film's debut just let toxicity stew around the film for what felt like eons. A tighter, leaner marketing campaign could've helped "Snow White" not exhaust moviegoers before a single ticket had been sold.

In truth, there was probably no way "Snow White" could've ever been a lucrative enterprise because of its excessive budget. Even the film's initial budget of around $210 million was significantly higher than the $160 million "Beauty and the Beast" budget, which had way more big stars in its cast. To be profitable at $269 million, the feature would've needed to make well over half a billion dollars. For every "Alice in Wonderland" and "Aladdin," there's been a "Dumbo" or a "Cruella," both of which got nowhere near $500 million globally. Expecting each and every one of these live-action movies to be a box office juggernaut is foolhardy.

Even Marvel movies, which for the longest time were guaranteed money spinners for Disney, have been failing to reach the heights they once did in the 2020s. And, Disney aside, billion-dollar blockbusters are becoming more rare. To break even for the Mouse House, "Snow White" would've had to reach "Dune: Part Two" numbers. Considering all these metrics, it's really not surprising that "Snow White" wasn't profitable on a $269 million budget. There were unquestionably many aspects of the film's execution that alienated moviegoers, but the staggeringly miscalculated budget meant the odds of box office glory were slim from the get-go.

When "Aladdin" reached the silver screen in 2019, it was the first major theatrical "Aladdin" movie in ages. Ditto for "Beauty and the Beast" in 2017. 21st-century audiences didn't need to wait for Disney's 2025 update to see the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Snow White" on the big screen: In 2012, "Mirror Mirror" and "Snow White & The Huntsman" famously went head-to-head as two very different takes on the "Snow White" myth. The latter film's mythology continued (complete with two of the dwarfs) in 2016's "The Huntsman: Winter's War." There's been no shortage of "Snow White" material on the big screen in the last decade, it's just that none of it came from Disney.

The existence of those films took away some of the specialness of Marc Webb's "Snow White," especially since this new movie only marketed itself as being another take on a classic story rather than being something of a reinvention, like Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland." Heck, Disney's "Snow White" even incorporated elements reminiscent of those two 2012 films, including the critical use of seven "bandits" and a sequence of the seven dwarfs sneaking into the queen's castle. Snow White may be "the fairest of them all," but she wasn't especially distinctive to 2025 moviegoers.

The typical casting mold for these live-action Disney remakes is to cast an unknown actor in the lead role and then get a massive box office draw in the supporting cast. Mia Wasikowska and Johnny Depp in "Alice in Wonderland," Mena Massoud and Will Smith in "Aladdin," Lily James and Cate Blanchett in "Cinderella" — the pattern's been firmly established. "Snow White" had one-half of that equation with Rachel Zegler taking on the title role. Unfortunately, the producers opted to pick Gal Gadot to be the film's equivalent to Depp, Smith, and Blanchett, which was a grave miscalculation. While she anchored the first "Wonder Woman," since then, Gadot hasn't headlined a live-action theatrical release that's made more than $50 million. She's still just known as Wonder Woman rather than someone who is bankable on her own merits. 

Gadot's cinematic exploits since 2017's "Wonder Woman" have included largely derided flicks like "Red Notice," "Heart of Stone," and "Wonder Woman 1984." Lending her name to "Snow White" didn't give the film an extra layer of prestige or any box office prowess. It was just another aspect of the remake that mostly just elicited shrugs from moviegoers. Hiring someone with a middling box office track record like Gadot in a key "Snow White" role eschewed the mold that Disney has otherwise strictly adhered to for these remakes. If any of these remakes needed a big star to boost its profile, it was surely "Snow White."

2023's "The Little Mermaid" opened to an impressive $117.5 million over the four-day Memorial Day weekend, but it still ended up making a loss. This came on the back of "Dumbo" and "Cruella" failing to make waves at the box office. "Mulan" also garnered shrugs and controversy from the general public, and on Disney+, "Peter Pan & Wendy" and "Pinocchio" didn't exactly set the world alight. At this point, it seems pretty clear that the bloom is off the rose when it comes to Disney reimagining classic characters and stories in live action.

Is the problem that these live-action Disney movies are getting worse, or is it that (like Marvel movies) the initial shine has worn off and audiences are simply fatigued? In truth, it's likely a bit of both. The fact is that "Snow White" felt obligatory and run-of-the-mill in 2025, whereas ten years ago something like "Cinderella" felt like an event audiences had to see. With this reality becoming inescapable, "Snow White" couldn't even lean on the Disney brand name to help mitigate its box office woes.

Just ask the people behind movies that scored an F CinemaScore grade – toxic audience reception can sink a feature. Still, various genres have different standards for what constitutes a "poor" CinemaScore grade. Horror movies, for instance, can prove leggy even if they get CinemaScore marks as low as D+ from audiences (we're looking at you, "Hereditary"). More mainstream, audience-friendly genres, though, tend to need something in the A range or else there's trouble afoot. That's the case with family movies like "Snow White," which shouldn't contain any material that leads audiences to leave the theater handing out harsh grades.

Over its opening weekend, though, "Snow White" scored a B+ CinemaScore grade. Not an inherently disastrous moniker, but pretty much every other live-action Disney remake has scored in the A range. Though, to be fair to "Snow White," not all audience members greeted the film with a shrug — the reaction differed across age and gender. Both women and audiences under 18 gave the feature an A- CinemaScore grade, for example.

You could argue that landing a B+ rating is far from the worst outcome for a family movie blockbuster. However, it's fair to say that there was a lot riding on this score given the troubled nature of the production — it made it clear that "Snow White" wasn't going to bounce back from all the controversy and blow everyone away at the box office. With word-of-mouth mostly being blah, it's no wonder opening weekend projections for "Snow White" kept decreasing as the days went on.

Across the reviews for "Snow White," the one positive aspect that everyone agrees on is that Rachel Zegler gives the role her all. This talented performer who strutted her stuff in 2021's "West Side Story" has received universal praise for both her singing chops and her compelling on-screen presence. However, not even this gifted performer could make audiences care about a Disney princess that's never had much of a fanbase.

A lot has been written about Snow White as a character, with many critics pointing out that she's devoid of any personality in the original Disney animation. The late, great film critic Roger Ebert once said: "If Walt Disney's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' had been primarily about Snow White, it might have been forgotten soon after its 1937 premiere, and treasured today only for historical reasons, as the first full-length animated feature in color. Snow White is, truth to tell, a bit of a bore, not a character who acts but one whose mere existence inspires others to act."

Since the original 1937 version, most of Disney's marketing surrounding "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" has focused on Doc, Grumpy, Dopey, and the other dwarfs. Just look at that "Seven Dwarfs Mine Train" rollercoaster that's been entertaining Disney theme park attendees for years now. There's also the animated kids' show spin-off "The 7D" from the mid-2010s, which further solidified the Mouse House's larger interest in the supporting characters over Snow White herself. Snow White has never cultivated a fanbase on par with later Disney princesses, and this was a critical problem not even Rachel Zegler could solve.

In general, remakes of films from Disney's famed Renaissance Era fare better than remakes of the Mouse House's earlier animated movies. Exceptions do exist in this trend, as seen by "The Jungle Book" and "Alice in Wonderland." However, the huge successes of "Aladdin," "The Lion King," and "Beauty and the Beast" indicate that there's more appetite for the Disney of the 1990s than previous decades. Even Disney seemed to realize that remakes of earlier titles weren't exactly printing money as 21st-century movie events, hence "Lady and the Tramp," "Peter Pan & Wendy," and "Pinocchio" all being sent to Disney+.

This isn't necessarily a reflection of audiences detesting all old movies. Instead, it merely captures how kids who grew up on '90s Disney titles are now parents looking to have a nostalgia-fueled movie theater trip with their kids. Plus, '90s Disney movies and their catchy songs, like "Be Our Guest" or "Hakuna Matata," have never left pop culture, whereas the music from older Disney movies isn't quite as memorable. The success of the "Lilo & Stitch" theatrical trailer (which became the second most-watched live-action Disney trailer with an astonishing 158 million views) also reflects how audiences prefer more modern Disney movie remakes, a reality that left "Snow White" fighting a massive uphill battle at the box office.

Though its endless release date delays kept "Snow White" in the online discourse machine for years on end, actual marketing from Walt Disney Pictures was weirdly muted, especially very close to the film's release. Other live-action Disney remakes arrived in theaters with a tidal wave of promotional tie-ins and ads. In 2016, "The Jungle Book" debuted its big theatrical trailer during the Super Bowl, while three years later, "Aladdin" debuted a major trailer (complete with a first look at Will Smith's Genie) at the Grammys. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, "The Little Mermaid" arrived in theaters with a marketing blitz that included a trailer premiering during the Oscars.

"Snow White" didn't receive anywhere near as notable a marketing push. Leading up to its release, articles even appeared questioning where all the merchandise for this tentpole was. Meanwhile, major TV events in February 2025 like the Grammys and Super Bowl came and went without any special "Snow White" commercials. Even the smattering of ways that Disney theme parks promoted "Snow White" seemed somewhat half-hearted. Granted, it's not like "Snow White" would've turned into "The Lion King" with endless TV commercials. Still, the lack of a significant Disney promotional push couldn't have helped an already troubled motion picture.

From the moment "Snow White" was announced, discussions about how on Earth this production would handle a modern incarnation of the seven dwarfs overshadowed almost everything else. Stars with dwarfism were quick to voice their opinions. "Jackass" alum Jason "Wee Man" Acuña didn't agree with Disney's approach to the remake, and "Game of Thrones" veteran Peter Dinklage said that he found it insulting that Disney would still use these characters.

"They were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White — but you're still telling the story of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,'" Dinklage said. "Take a step back and look at what you're doing there. It makes no sense to me. You're progressive in one way, but then you're still making that f***ing backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together." Disney seemingly took Peter Dinklage's "Snow White" criticism to heart, releasing a statement soon afterward. "To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community," a spokesperson said.

The fact that Disney opted to render the dwarfs using CGI caused yet more negative conversation, and execs clearly took note of this, because the seven characters were totally absent from the film's posters. The dwarf character designs became a go-to punching bag online, and the fact that all but one of them were voiced by non-dwarf actors only made things worse. Even if Disney had cast actual dwarf actors for these roles, there's no getting away from the fact that the CGI designs are absolute nightmare fuel.

2025's domestic box office landscape has been nothing short of dismal, and that didn't help "Snow White." You might be thinking: Surely the fact that other films have bombed in 2025 left the door open for "Snow White" to swoop in and scoop up a fortune? Well, the fact is that success tends to breed success when it comes to the Hollywood box office, with big movies fuelling others — just look at the whole "Barbenheimer" phenomenon from 2023.

Of course, it's doubtful that a bunch of gargantuan 2025 productions would've suddenly given "Snow White" a $100+ million domestic opening weekend, but showing trailers for "Snow White" before films that audiences were flocking to see could have helped drum up more interest in the Disney live-action remake. Early March 2025 weekends led by weakly-performing titles like "Novocaine" have reiterated that this year is struggling to draw in audiences. Sure, "Snow White" is one of 2025's biggest duds, but it's one of many films coming up short in a dreary marketplace.