‘Snow White’ Eyeing $45M Opening — $270M+ Budget

These early numbers are very worrisome.

In February, Deadline reported that “Snow White” was tracking to make $70M in its first three-day frame. Later that month, Box Office Pro had tracking at $65M. Then, just last week, THR reported that the film was destined to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $50M to $56M.

Now, just three days before its release, the numbers got even lower. It turns out that “Snow White” is now aiming at a $45M-$50M opening. That’s a catastrophic total. The reviews are still not out yet — the embargo only lifts tomorrow afternoon — and there’s the growing sense that they won’t really matter that much. People have already made up their minds about this film, and the controversies have surrounding it have turned them off.

When it comes to the budget on “Snow White,” the trades claim it cost $270M, but it’s probably much higher than that. Forbes had reported $270M in December 2023, and that was before reshoots and post production work took place the following summer.

I’m being generous here, “Snow White” would likely need to earn around $700M to break even. That’s not going to happen. The film is turning into a Marvels-level catastrophe for the mouse house.

The film has indeed blown past its originally intended budget ($180M) — no doubt, and mostly, due to multiple rounds of reshoots, rewrites, and most pertinently, a Peter Dinklage-led backlash. Dinklage was a real douche about it; Disney received plenty of pushback after he spoke out against including little people being cast as the dwarves. They were eventually replaced by CGI.

What I want to know is the exact amount of money that would have been saved if Disney had decided to ignore Dinklage’s ranting, not used CGI and just stuck with the original plan of casting seven actors with dwarfism.