After months – if not years! – of controversy, for all manner of different reasons, Disney’s latest live-action remake, Snow White, finally hit cinemas last weekend.
Starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot as the title character and her wicked stepmother, the new film is a new adaptation of Disney’s first ever animated feature, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, with a few notable tweaks.
So, given just how much the film was in the headlines in the lead-up to its release, how has it performed with cinema-goers? Well, that depends on who you ask…
On one hand, Snow White’s opening weekend box office figures don’t look great
Forbes reported that it made $43 million domestically (around £33 million) in its first few days, the lowest figure for any of Disney’s live-action remakes (Mufasa, the 2024 Lion King origin story, did make less, but this is actually not a live-action remake, as most of the characters are animated in photo-realistic CGI).
Globally, that figure for Snow White’s opening weekend stands at $87 million (around £67 million).
Prior to that, Dumbo held the unenviable title, after Tim Burton’s version of the Disney classic made just $46 million in its first weekend.
Not helping matters is that, reportedly because of costly reshoots, Snow White is listed among one of the most expensive films ever made, with its budget believed to have been around $240–270 million (around £185 – £208 million).
It’s not all bad news for Snow White at the box office, though
A press release from Disney sent out to journalists on Monday indicated that it was the number one film at the UK box office, and celebrated making £3.85 million across both the UK and Ireland in its first few days.
Rachel Zegler also posted a behind-the-scenes picture from set celebrating her Snow White film being the “number one movie in the world”.
Was there anything else interesting to note about Snow White’s box office performance?
One small detail was picked up on by The Guardian.
Despite some (tired) criticism of the film centring around how supposedly “woke” it is, compared to its animated counterpart, Snow White is apparently performing better at the box office in US states that voted for the Republicans in last year’s US election than so-called “blue states”.
Read more about the many controversies surrounding Snow White here.