Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Disney
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Perhaps Snow White should have kept her seven dwarfs, after all.
The 2025 live-action remake of "Snow White" dropped its use of dwarf actors and ended up being a progressive disaster as star Rachel Zegler mocked the traditional story in media interviews.
'We didn't do that this time.'
"Snow White" dragged its way to an $87 million domestic weekend when it opened, and while that seems like a massive sum for anyone, filings reported by Forbes showed the movie had nearly double that in losses.
Poisoned production
"Snow White" ended up going over budget, ultimately costing $336.5 million. Its domestic opening was a reported 13% less than forecast, and its eventual worldwide intake of $205.7 million hurt Disney massively, and ended up being the fifth-lowest gross for a live-action adaptation for the studio.
Many memes and unsold tickets later, the 2025 "Snow White" reportedly lost $170 million; here's how the math works.
The U.K. government gave "Snow White" a reimbursement for filming in its region, equating to $64.9 million (per Forbes). So, while that brings their net expenses down, the box office money is split between the studio and the theaters, leaving Disney with a $271.6 million bill and around $103 million brought in.
That left the Mouse House at a $168.7 million loss.
Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Snow blow
Zegler diminished her movie so much before its release that YouTube accounts had no problem making compilations of her bizarre critiques. This included clips of Zegler saying the older cartoon movie scared her the first time she watched it and confirmations that the new movie would stray away from a story about a prince rescuing Snow White.
"We didn't do that this time," she boasted.
The film also featured no dwarfs at all, in terms of real actors.
After "Game of Thrones" star Peter Dinklage criticized the production for doing a "backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together" in 2022, Disney dropped its dwarf actors and replaced them with computer-generated ones.
This confused audiences, many of whom agreed with actor Dylan Postl, who remarked that the apparent progressive move actually resulted in dwarfs not getting any roles in perhaps the biggest movie there has ever been with specific characters for dwarfs.
"Peter Dinklage spoke up about this, and that was my issue," Postl said at the time. "He had in the past no issue cashing checks that were made for dwarf roles like 'Elf' and all of that. Yes, he blew away the barriers when he did his roles that weren't necessarily made for a dwarf, but the 'Elf' role was made for a dwarf, that check cleared just fine."
Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Woke crusade
In the months that followed, Zegler continued her woke crusade in different media appearances. At one point in December 2023, she teamed up with fellow Disney princess Halle Bailey to preach more about the religion of diversity while simultaneously declaring their victimhood.
As for "Snow White," it ranks only above some rather infamous live-action Disney flops. It tops only "Mulan" (2020), "102 Dalmatians" (2000), "Christopher Robin" (2018), and "The Jungle Book" (1994).
According to WDW News Today, when adjusting the domestic performance of "102 Dalmatians" and "Christopher Robin" for inflation, they actually beat out "Snow White," dropping the film down to third-worst in the studio's history.
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