After poisonous PR, ‘Snow White’ has ‘heigh-ho’pes for a fairy tale ending at the box office

Rachel Zegler stars in 'Snow White.' Disney via CNN Newsource

Remaking Disney’s first animated movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was always going to be controversial, but Disney’s new live-action retelling of the 1937 film may just whistle its way to box office success.

The original film’s creator Walt Disney was lauded for his “monumental innovation” in creating the first-ever feature-length animated film at the time of its release, with The Hollywood Reporter pronouncing at the time that Disney had “carved for himself a permanent niche in the motion picture hall of fame” – a truly premonitive observation.

The new “Snow White,” out on Friday, however, isn’t so much of a monumental innovation, at least technically speaking, given this is one of many live-action remakes that Disney Studios has released in recent years. But, with early glowing reviews for the film’s star Rachel Zegler and descriptions like “visual feast” and one of Disney’s “best live-action remakes in years” to describe this updated cinematic retelling, the film may very well wind up overcoming a rollout that has been plagued with PR issues.

“Snow White” stars Zegler and Gal Gadot – along with those seven fictional characters Dopey, Grumpy, Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, Doc and Happy – have been caught in several cultural controversies along the way, making the positive first reactions to the film likely a welcome relief to the House of Mouse.

Zegler, who plays the film’s titular princess, was met with racist trolling from internet users who questioned why an actress of Colombian descent is playing a character celebrated for having “skin as white as snow” when her casting was announced.

“At one point, you just have to shut it all off and think, if I’m not going to read the bad, I’m just not going to read the good either,” she said in 2022, responding to the criticism. “I’m just going to believe in what I believe in.”

Zegler later found herself in hot water for commenting on the reelection of U.S. President Donald Trump in November, for which she later apologized.

The remake was also criticized when actor Peter Dinklage said it was a “f***ing backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together” and should be updated in that respect while appearing on a 2022 episode of Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast.

Disney responded to the actor’s comments at the time, saying in a statement that the film intended to take “a different approach with these seven characters” in order “to avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film.” The studio also said they consulted with “members of the dwarfism community” during development.

That different approach is reflected, at least partially, in the decision to shorten the title of the new live-action film to simply “Snow White” and with the use of CGI for Snow White’s seven cohorts. And Zegler told Extra TV at the time that the new film will focus less on Snow White’s “love story with a guy who literally stalks her,” prompting criticism that the remake would be a departure from the story’s classic canon.

“It’s really not about the love story at all,” Zegler added. “It’s an inner journey she goes on to find her true self and she meets a lot of people along the way that make the journey really incredible.”

A magical history

While the original film didn’t face the same kind of 21st century publicity snafus that the 2025 remake has, Disney himself had to fend off doubters – who called early machinations of the film “Disney’s Folly” – that he could pull off his vision of an engaging, feature-length animated film.

Determined to turn what were once flat, 2D cartoons into dynamic images that appeared to move in three dimensions, Disney and his team not only created what we now know today as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” but changed cinema forever by putting a new cinematic medium on the map.

The success of the film sparked a prolific period in filmmaking for Disney, who went on to release 10 more feature-length animated films between 1940 and 1950. And the rest is history.

“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” adapted from the Grimm Brothers fairy tale, premiered in Los Angeles at the since-demolished Carthay Circle Theater in 1937 in front of a star-studded crowd and was released theatrically in 1938.

It is one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time and the first feature film to release a soundtrack available for purchase at the time, according to Disney’s website. And as the country had just started to recover from the Great Depression when the film came out, the studio launched a successful product line in conjunction with the film, a strategy that has since evolved to drive astronomical figures in product sales.

Disney earned an honorary Oscar award in 1939, which recognized the film as a significant motion picture innovation and helped pioneer a growing animated content industry. The award, presented to Disney by Shirley Temple at the time, consisted of one full-size Oscar statuette as well as seven smaller ones. The movie was also nominated for an Oscar in the best musical score category at the time.

With a budget of around US$1.5 million (US$33 million today), the film drew in US$8 million, which is around US$174 million today.

Early industry estimates predict that the new “Snow White,” which cost around US$270 million to make, is poised to earn anywhere between US$48 to $58 million during its opening weekend.

It may not earn the “box office smash” superlative with those figures, but, perhaps the power of the original Snow White film’s place in cinematic history may just be enough to push the Zegler-led remake over the edge to box office glory.

Article written by Alli Rosenbloom, CNN