‘Snow White’ Falls Under a Spell at the Global Box Office

Having completed almost a month in theaters worldwide, Disney’s Snow White is staring at the unfortunate scenario in which it fails to pass three minor box office milestones. It still hasn’t hit the $100 million mark, neither domestically nor worldwide, which means that it hasn’t hit the $200 million mark globally. Snow White cost a fortune, but the writing was on the wall even before it debuted. A section of the public unfairly targeted star Rachel Zegler for making pro-Palestine statements, and Disney appeared to allow it. She was made the scapegoat for a project that was struggling to attract attention from the get-go.

With $81 million domestically and another $99 million from overseas markets, Snow White has grossed a cumulative total of $181 million worldwide. Directed by Marc Webb, the movie famously cost over $250 million to produce, which means that Disney probably has a bigger bomb on its hands than Joker: Folie à Deux last year. It’s giving the mid-2010s, when the Mouse House released films such as John Carter, Tomorrowland, and The Lone Ranger in quick succession. The box office under-performance of those movies marked the end of an era, and a similar shift could happen because of Snow White.

Disney’s streak of live-action remakes had already been running on fumes, with The Little Mermaid under-performing a couple of years ago, and the recent Mufasa: The Lion King earning $900 million less than its predecessor. Snow White’s disastrous performance certainly isn’t going to inspire the studio to invest heavily in another remake or two. At the same time, Universal is gearing up to release the first of its planned live-action remakes of the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy. If that movie succeeds, the industry might reconsider its stance.

Disney Is Having a Dull 2025

Besides the controversy surrounding Zegler, Snow White also had to contend with mediocre reviews and audience apathy, not to mention the criticism directed at Gal Gadot’s performance as the Evil Queen. The movie appears to have settled at a 40% approval rating on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes; it holds a so-so 72% audience score on the platform. Disney had a brilliant 2024, passing the $5 billion mark in combined revenue, mainly due to the billion-dollar-plus global box office hauls of Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. But with Captain America: Brave New World under-performing as well, the year 2025 hasn’t gotten off to a great start. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.