Leading film industry experts are weighing in on why Disney’s live-action "Snow White" remake became one of the biggest box office blunders in recent memory.
Wall Street Journal film critic Kyle Smith, "Hollywood in Toto Podcast" host Christian Toto, and YouTube film and pop culture commentator "Nerdrotic," told Fox News Digital that a "perfect storm" of bad press ahead of Snow White’s release warded off potential viewers who worried that it would be too woke.
Not only that, the film just wasn't very good. Smith panned the movie outright, calling it "charmless, uninspired and mediocre." Nerdrotic called it an "ill-conceived creative bankruptcy." And though Toto was less harsh and praised elements of the film, he ripped the movie for its "woke upgrades" to the original film.
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The studio’s remake of the 1937 animated classic suffered a dismal box office opening on the weekend of Mar. 28, earning only $43 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada. This represented a huge drop-off from box office predictions in February that it would open to $85 million domestically.
With a $43 million opening, "Snow White" performed worse at the box office than the worst-performing live-action Disney remake up to that point, the 2019 "Dumbo" remake, which opened to $46 million.
The film’s poor opening extended to its second week, where it earned only $14.2 million domestically – a 66% decline from its opening weekend. These numbers appeared all the more catastrophic considering the film had a budget of approximately $250 million — making it one of the company's most expensive film productions in the last several years.
Toto summed up what he thought led to this bomb, stating, "The film endured a perfect storm of bad buzz, turning what should have been a slam-dunk hit into a debacle."
"A leading lady who antagonized the original film's fans ... a lackluster trailer ... a studio increasingly known for its woke storytelling ... a dwarf controversy that never should have happened in the first place ... there was never any room for positive buzz to build," he continued, adding up the laundry list of controversies the film endured.
In the three years leading up to the "Snow White" release, a year-long delay, Disney's apparent flip-flop on making the film's "dwarfs" depiction more politically correct, lead actress Rachel Zegler's bashing of the original film's traditional themes and her public demonization of Trump supporters, soured the film before it even came out.
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Smith noted that all this bad press caused prospective audiences to believe that "the remake was going to be an act of cultural vandalism on a par with tossing a bucket of paint on the Mona Lisa."
He noted that the film was "probably perceived, or feared, as being more woke than it was."
Mentioning the year-long delay and reported re-shoots done to the film, he added, "I suspect that when Disney did reshoots, executives steered the story back in a fairly conventional direction." In the end, however, Smith said the movie wasn’t good.
Youtuber Nerdrotic, whose real name is Gary Buechler and has a YouTube channel that boasts more than 1.2 million subscribers, told Fox News Digital that the film was made "worse by a two-year-long PR nightmare mostly due to the film's star."
The pop culture commentator added that "Snow White" is "a well-earned historic failure," stating, "From nightmarish CGI dwarves to Gal Godot 'singing' and the inability to suspend my disbelief enough to convince myself that Rachel Zegler is this kind and beautiful person."
Nerdrotic blasted the film as woke, noting, "After all that was said and done, I was expecting more generic Disney content, not feminist/communist propaganda."
Toto said he found the movie to be "certainly woke," and criticized it for getting away from the original story.
"The story diverges from the source material to make Snow White the main protagonist and diminish her love for the Prince (except he's not even a Prince-Prince in the film)," he said, noting that such changes "frustrated" him.
The film’s male love interest is a bandit played by Andrew Burnap, who falls in love with Zegler’s "Snow White" after teaming up to defeat the evil queen.
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Toto was the only one of the experts who mentioned some positive aspects of the film, saying, "the film moves briskly, features Rachel Zegler's lovely singing voice and has a sweetness that should go down easier once all the bad buzz dies down. I bet it will perform well on Disney+."
Though he savaged the film, Smith marveled at the movie’s poor box-office performance, saying that kids’ films normally perform well despite bad reviews. "A lot of kids’ movies that aren’t very good nevertheless make a lot of money because parents just need to get out of the house sometimes, and they don’t mind being bored if the kids stay calm for a couple of hours."
"So I’m surprised it may not even reach $100 million at the domestic box office," he said, adding, "I would have guessed it would hit at least $150 million."
When asked how they think Disney can prevent similar box office disasters going forward, they argued that Disney needs to ditch "wokeness" both on and off-screen. "Woke often short circuits the storytelling process, so a move away from it is almost certainly a positive step," Toto said.
Smith said Disney should remember "that parents of small children are a lot more conservative than Hollywood progressives. [Disney] always knew that, but they temporarily forgot that their customers are more important than their employees’ feelings."
As far as dealing with the outspoken political views of movie stars like Zegler, Smith thinks that the studio will mandate penalties for becoming a PR liability for the film. "Yes, my guess is they are going to put it in actors’ contracts in the future, if they haven’t already: dump on our movie, or provide unnecessary distractions from it, and you’ll be penalized."
"Studios have always had morals clauses; this would be more of a stupidity clause," he added.
Nerdrotic agreed, stating, "This should be a call to arms with agents and studios. The culture has shifted and when your 'stars' are on the clock they are their to sell, not alienate half the potential shrinking audience."
He continued, "These are desperate times in Hollywood, which is suffering from brand damage."
Toto disagreed with actors being corralled by studios in such a way, but urged stars to keep their statements appropriate during production periods. "I'd advise stars to think about why they're talking to the press, walking down the red carpet or chatting with the likes of Fallon or Colbert. It's to nudge people into seeing your film. Period."
"Getting political, divisive or just cruel is a terrible way to coax audiences to see your product," he concluded.
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