Disney’s live-action “Snow White” is a train wreck waiting to happen. There’s now a report, via MovieWeb, that the UK premiere in London has been scrapped in fear of “anti-woke backlash.”
Not just that, Variety is reporting that Disney has canceled the red carpet for the “Snow White” Hollywood premiere on March 15, which will also not include the dozens of media outlets usually invited by Disney to interview the cast. Instead, coverage will be limited to photographers and a house crew.
Variety’s sources claim that the scaling back has less to do with the “anti-woke” brigade and more about the “controversies” surrounding leads Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot. This seems to be move to protect the talent from being blindsided, but the optics are bad.
Zegler’s controversies are already well known, she’s attacked the original film, multiple times, but when it comes to Gadot, it sounds like it has to do with the actress’ pro-Israel stance. It doesn’t help that Zegler, Gadot’s co-star, recently posted “Free Palestine” on social media.
We still don’t know what the actual budget is on “Snow White,” with some outlets claiming it’s over $300M. As far as I know, the film, which is set to be released in 10 days, hasn’t screened yet for press. Given the toxic buzz, do we even expect reviews to be any good?
Earlier in the year, a teaser for “Snow White” was released. It might have taken the cake as the most hated teaser of 2024, having nabbed 1.4 million dislikes on YouTube. I don’t believe any other movie has come close to this kind of vitriol. It’s coming to the point where the film is now tracking to earn less than $50M in its opening weekend.
“Snow White” was written by none other than Greta Gerwig and directed by Marc Webb (“500 Days of Summer”). Not counting the additional reshoots, which took place in 2023 and 2024, principal photography on the film began on March 7, 2022, and wrapped in June 2022.