It would be an understatement to say that Disney’s Snow White underperformed at the box office. The movie has made just $168 million since its release, and could leave cinemas with less than $200 million to its name, making for a massive loss. After all the reviews pinned the blame on Gal Gadot’s performance, it’s odd that Rachel Zegler has seemingly been singled-out as the scapegoat, but however you slice it, this is a film that flopped.
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So much, in fact, that there are rumours Disney is shutting down its remake factory, no longer able to rely on it for easy money – lest we forget, the much-panned Aladdin cleared a billion dollars. That means no Sabrina Carpenter or Avantika (or anyone, for that matter) as Rapunzel in the future. However, perhaps the most damning evidence of Snow White’s meagre returns is not in comparing it to other Disney movies, but to other Snow White movies.
Snow White Might Not Even Be The Best Live-Action Snow White Movie
In 2012, there was another live-action adaptation of Snow White called Mirror Mirror. An adaptation of the original fairytale produced by Relativity Media rather than an in-house Disney remake, the movie is not trying to recreate the 1937 original, but do its own thing. However, it only managed a 50 percent critic rating and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, where Snow White has 40 and 73, respectively.
Though it had a considerable cast – Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen, Lily Collins as Snow White, a pre-likes-eating-people-allegations Armie Hammer as the Prince – it too suffered from disappointing box office returns, making $183 million from a $100 million budget. It did, however, also win an Academy Award for Best Costume Design.
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Considering Snow White had a much higher budget of $270 million (and that’s before you add in a major marketing campaign), it has already well and truly lost the war to Mirror Mirror. However, it may end up adding insult to injury and lose the battle too. Now in its third week and with A Minecraft Movie here to dominate the family market, it might be touch and go for Snow White to make the extra $15 million required to oust Mirror Mirror as the highest grossing Snow White live-action adaptation.
Even if it does, $200 million seems out of reach, and the $570 million The Little Mermaid made (itself viewed as a disappointment) is simply never going to happen.
