(CNN) — Disney’s “Snow White,” a big-budget live-action retelling of the classic fairytale, opened to a sleepy $43 million at the domestic box office this weekend amid a slew of controversies.
Early industry estimates predicted “Snow White,” which cost around $270 million to make, would take in $48-$58 million in its first weekend. Despite falling short of expectations, “Snow White” surpassed Focus Features’ “Black Bag” ($4.4 million) and Disney’s “Captain America: Brave New World” ($4.1 million), and could see steady growth in the weeks ahead, according to industry analysts.
“It’s a Disney film. It settles in, there’s not going to be a lot of family competition,” said David A. Gross, who runs movie consultancy FranchiseRe. “This weekend is the locomotive that pulls the train.”
Though the remake of Disney’s 1937 classic topped the box office, it fell well short in comparison to Disney’s “Cinderella,” which was released about a decade ago on March 13, 2015. The controversy-free “Cinderella” grossed $91.8 million in its opening weekend against a $138.3 million budget, both figures adjusted for inflation. But the Disney princess genre has had varying levels of success, said Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian, in part because of shifting box office interest and the over-saturation of remakes.
“There may be a bit of fatigue on these live-action remakes of classic animated films,” he said.
It also didn’t help that “Snow White” garnered attention for all of the wrong reasons ahead of its release. The musical and children’s movie somehow found itself in the crosshairs of a culture war over the titular casting of Rachel Zegler, an American actor of Colombian descent, as well as the Israel-Hamas war with the casting of Gal Gadot, who had a mandated service in the Israeli army, as the “Evil Queen.” Then there was the reimagining of the Seven Dwarfs as magical creatures, drawing criticism from “Game of Thrones” actor Peter Dinklage.
It’s likely that Zegler’s casting hurt “Snow White” and caused a distraction, said Gross. He said some audiences prefer new and original stories highlighting diverse characters, rather than changing characters for remakes.
However, it’s unlikely the controversies reached the film’s core audiences: families and young girls, said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder and owner of Box Office Theory.
“The casual movie-going crowd sees a preview for a trailer or they hear about a movie, and they decide whether they want to go see it based on how they feel about it,” he said.
Moviegoers frequented theaters less over the last three weeks, leaving the box office down nearly 7% year-over-year, according to Comscore data. That’s a shift from a stronger start to the year, when the box office was up 22% from 2024.
It’s not surprising, Robbins told CNN, since the movies slated for late February and March of 2025 paled in comparison to March 2024’s “Dune: Part Two” and “Kung Fu Panda 4.”
“It’s part of the ebb and flow of the box office,” he said. “I definitely see that flipping back into 2025’s favor sooner rather than later.”
The box office could change at any point in time, especially as the release of summer blockbusters grows closer.
Dergarabedian expects earnings to look very different in just a few weeks, in particular with the April 4 release of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “A Minecraft Movie.” Warner Brothers Discovery is the parent company of CNN.
“Minecraft” will attract families and children, tapping into the reliability of the genre that’s boosted the box office, according to Dergarabedian.
“This is the story of the box office — it’s always the ups and downs, the peaks and valleys,” he said.
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
