Snow Whitehas had its first weekend at the box office and the numbers could indicate whether the film was a bomb and whether the many controversies surrounding it had an impact.Snow White’s endingwraps up the 2025 film in a way that proves both different and similar to the original 1937 movie. Some aspects of the latter were changed, while others were kept the same, renderingSnow Whitea middling installment regarding theranking of Disney’s live-action remake movies.
More than many others of its ilk, however,Snow Whitefaced many controversiesin the run-up to its release. Rachel Zegler’s casting as the titular princess caused division for more than one reason, with other elements likeSnow White’s CGI Seven Dwarfsproving to be a hit for some and a miss for others. Whether this factored intoSnow White’s box office performance remains to be seen, but the numbers for the film’s opening weekend have been released and could hint that it faces an uphill battle for Disney.
The Film Underperformed Expectations
Image via Disney
Snow White’s global opening weekend came on June 01, 2025, with the film projected to earn a worldwide total of around $100 million across its three-day release. However,Snow Whitefailed to reach this number by hauling a worldwide total of $87.3 million, well below expectations for Disney. Domestically,Snow Whitepulled in $44.3 million, with the other $43 million coming from overseas territories. Despite this placingSnow Whiteas one of the top five grossing movies of 2025 thus far domestically, the number will undoubtedly disappoint the House of Mouse.
Is Snow White A Box Office Bomb?
Fortunes Do Not Look Fair For Snow White
As far as how these opening weekend numbers look regarding the film becoming a box office success, it is not the best outcome for Disney.Snow Whiteunderwent several lengthy reshooting periods, pushing the production budget to between $240-$270 million. In modern Hollywood, around the same budget is usually applied for marketing and distribution costs, meaningSnow Whitewill have set Disney back by around $500 million when all is said and done.
Snow White Budget Makes It One Of Disney’s Most Expensive Live-Action Adaptations Of All Time
A new report indicates the massive budget for Snow White makes the film one of the most expensive live-action Disney adaptations of all time.
This means thatSnow Whitewill have to earn over $500 million during its box office run to begin turning a profit.Given the opening weekend numbers of $87.3 million, things are not looking good forSnow White.The film would need to prove incredibly long-lasting in theaters to have a chance of overcoming this projected $500 million break-even point, and after earning only $44 million domestically in its opening weekend,Snow Whitelooks unlikely to even cross the $100 million domestic mark.
While it is far too early to categorizeSnow Whiteas an outright box office bomb thus far, the many factors working against it make it unlikely to escape that fate…
This is made even less likely due to the increasingly short theatrical periods allotted to films in modern times. The wait times between a movie being released in theaters and being released on digital or streaming are becoming increasingly short, meaningSnow Whitewill likely not be given the time it would need to have long legs at the box office. While it is far too early to categorizeSnow Whiteas an outright box office bomb thus far, the many factors working against it make it unlikely to escape that fate eventually.
Did The Snow White Controversy Hurt The Movie?
Those Angry At Snow White Were Not Its Target Audience
Based on the online reaction toSnow Whiteover the last few years, the burning question for many will be whether the controversies surrounding the production affected its box office performance. Of course, it would be ignorant to say that the division did not impact the movie’s reception at all. After all, most online spaces for the movie - be that on social media platforms or movie aggregator websites like IMDb - are filled with angry vitriol directed at several elements of the movie.
All that said, it would be an equally large oversight to simply place all ofSnow White’s box office performance on the controversies. Those that have taken issue with Zegler’s comments about the original movie, for example, are of an older generation, and certainly notSnow White’s target demographic. Families and children will be mostly oblivious to this, meaningthere are other factors at work that have impactedSnow White’s overall box office performance aside from the small hit it likely took from the divisivenessof recent years.
The Other Factors Behind Snow White’s Box Office Performance
The Film Was Never Set-Up To Become A Box Office Hit
Disregarding the film’s controversial aspects, other elements render its box office performance a disappointing one. As already alluded to, the film’s soaring budget did not help matters and gave the film an uphill battle at the box office from the off. Beyond that, the reviews for the film are not the strongest, withSnow Whitecurrently holding a 44% approval score on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. This will undoubtedly have factored into people choosing whether to see the movie on opening weekend or to wait for it to be released on streaming services, the latter seemingly winning out.
Moreover,it is no secret that the appeal of Disney’s live-action remakes has been dwindling for a while. The last bona fide box office hit for a Disney live-action movie was 2019’sThe Lion King, with six movies since then -Snow Whiteincluded - either underperforming at the box office or just about breaking even. Combined with the fact that Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot are not proven box office draws like other Hollywood stars are, there are many reasons whySnow Whiteis struggling to be the fairest in the land at the box office.
How Snow White’s Box Office Compares To Disney’s Other Live-Action Remakes
Disney’s Other Remakes Of Classic Movies Have Performed Better
Finally, the last element worth exploring to contextualizeSnow White’s box office performance is how it compares to other live-action remakes from Disney. It is worth noting that many live-action remakes have stemmed from some lesser-known properties, meaningSnow Whiteshould only be compared to remakes of Disney’s “classics” collection. Overall, though,Snow Whitehas underperformed in its opening weekend compared to most of its peers.
$95,000,000
$132,500,000
$542,358,331
$175,000,000
$290,960,000
$966,550,600
Beauty and the Beast
$160,000,000
$357,000,000
$1,356,081,801
$183,000,000
$214,700,000
$1,050,693,953
$260,000,000
$433,000,000
$1,656,943,394
$240,000,000
$185,600,000
$569,626,289
$270,000,000
$87,300,000
Evidently,Snow Whiteis massively underperforming in comparison to most other major Disney live-action remakes. To add insult to injury,Snow Whitealso has the highest budget of any live-action Disney remake if the upper numbers reported are to be believed. Overall,Snow Whiteis struggling to keep up with the Disney remakes of the past and will likely not come anywhere close to their box office totals at the end of its worldwide run.
