Snow White, a live-action version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, made its debut in theaters on March 21st. This movie stars popular actress, Rachel Zegler, as Snow White. Snow White had a disappointing first week at the box office, as it only grossed $42 million the first weekend. Other Disney live-action movies have made more than triple that in their opening weekend, such as Lion King ($191 million). Snow White had a budget of $250 million and was expected to be a fan-favorite movie. However, controversy arose before Snow White’s debut due to conflicts with the leading actress, which affected the movie’s public image.
At the Hollywood Premiere of Snow White on March 15th, Rachel Zegler voiced her views on the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in an interview with FOX 7 on the red carpet. She said, “I mean, you know, the original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so. There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her. Weird! Weird. So we didn’t do that this time.” This statement gained disapproval from many. People claim that the point of a Disney Princess movie is love, and that taking away that aspect would throw off the movie’s values and perspective.
Following shortly after this incident, many of Zegler’s previous social media posts resurfaced. For example, Zegler posted a tweet cursing out Trump. This offended many across the world, feeding into their dislike of the actress. Additionally, she posted a tweet that said, “and always remember, free palestine,” on August 12, 2024. This sparked even more speculation, as Gal Gadot, the actress who plays the Evil Queen in Snow White, was born in Israel and openly supports Israel. Due to this, Rachel Zegler was marked as racist by some.
Furthermore, many people who have watched the movie were annoyed to see that Gal Gadot was cast as the Evil Queen. This was because the audience felt that Gadot “can’t act” and “she needs to stop being cast in movies.” Some critics have gone even further and said that her acting can and should be compared to Scooby Doo. This is due to the fact that she had too heavy of an accent in one of her scenes and that her performance didn’t embody that of the iconic Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Despite the issues that arose due to the cast of Snow White, the industry still had hope for the movie in its sophomore (second) weekend at the box office. However, this hope was crushed when the movie grossed a total of $14 million over the weekend. Along with this disappointment, movie critics began to leave many negative reviews on the movie. Multiple critics expressed that the acting was “too stiff” and that the cast failed to bring life to the characters. Others have described this movie as “strange,” “a mess,” and “too woke.”
As of March 31st, Snow White has 41% rotten tomatoes and is rated 1.6 out of 10 by IMDB. This means that critics have found this movie to be generally bad, or according to the rotten tomato scale, “rotten.” To make matters worse, the Google overlook of the movie states that only 7% of those who watched the movie enjoyed it.
Snow White, the updated story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, has received a lot of criticism and hate during its first two weeks at the box office, due to apparent poor acting and a controversial cast.
