“Snow White” may be the fairest of them all with a leading $43 million in its domestic box office debut, but Disney’s latest live-action remake is off to a sleepy start.
Overseas, “Snow White” also opened slightly behind projections with $44.3 million for a global launch of $87.3 million. Heading into the weekend, the film was estimated to collect $100 million globally.
“Snow White” arrived in theaters dogged with controversies, including criticism about the film’s depiction of the seven dwarves, complaints about changes to the nearly 100-year-old story and calls for boycotts because of co-stars Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot’s public stances on the Israel-Hamas war. There were also expensive reshoots, which added many millions to the film’s budget. Disney as a result scaled back the movie’s Los Angeles premiere, doing without traditional red carpet interviews. However, analysts don’t believe the deluge of bad publicity actually factored into ticket sales.
“This is a situation that is never ideal,” says senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “In the case of ‘Snow White,’ kids and families likely just wanted to see a PG film and [were] perhaps unaware of the controversies.”
Still, this cinematic take on the 1937 animated classic has notched the lowest domestic debut to date for Disney’s various reimaginings, below even 2019’s “Dumbo” which took flight with $45 million (without adjusting for inflation). Prior remakes of “The Little Mermaid,” “The Jungle Book,” “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King” all opened above $100 million. Three of those — 2019’s “Aladdin,” 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast” and 2019’s “The Lion King” — were billion-dollar blockbusters while a fourth, 2016’s “The Jungle Book,” got pretty close with $967 million.
So what does this mean for “Snow White” in terms of box office fortunes? Well, whether the musical film is deemed a success or a flop will rely entirely on the tentpole’s staying power. If the $250 million film, which stars Zegler as the original Disney princess and Gadot as the Evil Queen, follows a similar flight path of “Dumbo” (a lethargic $353 million globally), it’ll signal that after one too many revisits to the vault, families are tiring of Disney’s live-action remakes. “The Little Mermaid” also fell short of expectations with $569 million worldwide in 2023. Another real-life reboot, “Lilo & Stitch,” lands in theaters in May.
Disney, however, believes that “Snow White” can mirror the slow and steady ascent of last December’s “Mufasa.” The “Lion King” prequel opened to a soft $35 million but eventually climbed to $252 million domestically and a mighty $716 million globally. For “Snow White,” brand familiarity and a lack of family competition will help. So will the film’s solid “A-” grade from women and decent “B+” from general audiences on CinemaScore exit polls. “Snow White” appealed to mostly females, who accounted for nearly 70% of opening weekend crowds.
“This isn’t a Disney juggernaut,” says David A. Gross, who runs the FranchiseRe movie consulting firm. “It’s a soft opening by Disney’s historic standard. Success will depend on whether the film plays well for a couple of months like ‘Mufasa’ recently did. Disney knows how to support their films and this is a good corridor.”
He adds, “Keep in mind that for Disney animation, theatrical is the first of many income streams. ‘Snow White’ is a merchandising gold mine, and the IP will find its place somewhere somehow at the theme parks.”
Also this weekend, Robert De Niro’s R-rated mob drama “The Alto Knights” crumbled with a terrible $3.2 million from 2,800 cinemas in its domestic debut. The Warner Bros. film failed to crack the top five, landing in sixth place on box office charts. “Alto Knights,” which cost about $45 million to produce, is already shaping up to be one of the year’s biggest flops.
Reviews and audience sentiment may not benefit the film, in which De Niro pulls double duty as two of New York’s most notorious organized crime bosses; “Alto Knights” was saddled with a “B” grade on CinemaScore and lousy 39% Rotten Tomatoes average. Based on initial sales, “Alto Knights” is the second consecutive misfire for Warner Bros. after Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17″ which is projected to lose $75 million to $80 million in its theatrical run after a rocky box office reception. Now in its third weekend of release, “Mickey 17” dropped to No. 5 on box office charts with $3.7 million. The film has earned $40 million domestically and $100 million worldwide against a $118 million budget.
Another newcomer, body builder drama “Magazine Dreams,” starring Jonathan Majors, majorly stumbled with $700,000 from 800 theaters. The film debuted to acclaim at Sundance in January 2023 and has since been promoted as a shot at redemption for Majors, whose career stalled after he was convicted later that year of domestic assault and harassment of his ex-girlfriend. Briarcliff, the distributor of “The Apprentice,” picked up the film after Searchlight parted ways following Majors’ high-profile trial.
Elsewhere on domestic box office charts, Steven Soderbergh’s sleek thriller “Black Bag” enjoyed a solid second weekend with $4.4 million from 2,713 venues, declining just 42% from its debut. After opening at the No. 3 spot, the R-rated film rose to second place over the weekend. It has grossed $14.9 million so far. Focus Features, which spent $50 million on “Black Bag,” hopes that great reviews will help the film become a word-of-mouth hit.
Disney’s Marvel sequel “Captain America: Brave New World” landed in third place with $4.3 million in its sixth weekend. The superhero adventure, starring Anthony Mackie, has earned $192 million domestically and $400.8 million worldwide, which ranks as the biggest Hollywood release of the year but isn’t quite enough to offset its hefty $180 million price tag.
Paramount’s action comedy “Novocaine” tumbled to No. 4 after last weekend’s first place finish. The film added $3.7 million from 3,369 theaters, dropping a painful 57% from its debut. So far, “Novocaine” has generated $15.7 million and $5.3 million internationally. Luckily, production costs were roughly $18 million, so there’s not too high a threshold for profitability.
Though “Snow White” provided a bit of necessary momentum to the marketplace, overall box office grosses are grim. Revenues are trailing nearly 7% behind 2024 and 39% behind 2019, according to Comscore. On deck, “A Minecraft Movie (April 4) and Marvel’s “Thunderbolts” (May 2) hope to inject life into theaters.
“We will be singing a much more positive tune in just a few short weeks,” predicts Comscore’s Dergarabedian.
From Variety US