Rachel Zegler amuses me. She’s just 23 and can’t keep her thoughts to herself, despite Disney’s intentions to slap some masking tape on her mouth.
I really didn’t want to tackle the blowback Zegler recently caused following her Instagram post, where she declared, “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace,” and “there is a deep deep sickness in this country,” and “another four years of hatred, leaning us towards a world I do not want to live in.”
Hey, she’s allowed to say what she wants, and there’s certainly room for civil discourse in any social media platform, but she’s also leading a $270M movie for Disney, and comments like these will only further isolate a major part of the targeted audience for ‘Snow White.’
The last thing I expected was for Zegler to apologize for these comments, but it seems like Disney has tied her hands up in a twister and she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. There’s no doubt in my mind that Zegler was forced to write down these words …
On Thursday night, Zegler posted this official apology:
Hi everyone, I would like to sincerely apologize for the election post I shared on Instagram last week. I let me emotions get the best of me. Hatred and anger have caused us to move further and further away from peace and understanding, and I am sorry I contributed to the negative discourse. This week has been emotion for so many of us, but I firmly believe that everyone has the right to their opinion, even when it differs from my own. I am committed to contributing positively towards a better tomorrow.
It’s not like the reactions to Zegler’s original comment were any better. Political commentator Megyn Kelly called Zegler a “pig” for her election reaction, and scolded Disney: “You’re gonna have to redo your film again, because this woman is a pig, and you fired Gina Carano for far less than this nonsense.”
Zegler’s comments come only a year after the actress slammed the original 1937 classic, ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,’ as “weird” and “creepy,” adding that the character’s love interest, the prince, was a “stalker.” She’s also described the upcoming remake as “PC Snow White.”
UPDATE: Coincidentally, Forbes is now reporting that the budget for the upcoming live-action “Snow White” had ballooned to $270M by the end of 2023. The movie has blown past its originally intended budget — which was $180M-$200M — no doubt, and mostly, due to all of the reshoots and rewrites that have plagued the production.
Given that the $270M number comes from the end of 2023, I would imagine the film’s budget is now in the $300M range since there was further additional photography done on the film in 2024. Earlier in the year, The Daily Mail (not the most reliable source, mind you) reported the figure to actually be in the $330 million range,
Is “The Exorcist” truly the greatest horror film ever made, or has time crowned a new champion of fear? Maybe it’s “The Shining,” ‘Texas Chainsaw,’ “Psycho,” or something entirely unexpected that still keeps you up at night.