Disney’s live-action “Snow White” weekend box office debut was dwarfed by box office expectations.
“Snow White” opened over the weekend with a slouchy $43 million in domestic box office sales. Overseas, the movie debuted with $87 million in ticket sales, per Box Office Mojo — landing far beneath anticipated earnings for the movie.
The controversy-plagued movie was forecast to pass the $100 million mark globally during its weekend debut, which, when compared to previous live-action remakes from Disney, was a reasonable earnings projection.
But “Snow White” failed to meet expectations set by Disney’s previous live-action remakes, many of which have cleared or come close to the $100 million mark opening weekend.
In 2019, Disney’s live-action adaptation of “The Lion King” grossed $191 million opening weekend, and “Beauty and the Beast” debuted in 2017 with $174 million in ticket sales.
Below are the domestic debut earnings for all of Disney’s live-action adaptations, per Box Office Mojo.
- “The Lion King” — $191 million
- “Beauty and the Beast” — $174 million
- “Alice in Wonderland” — $116 million
- “The Jungle Book” — $103 million
- “The Little Mermaid” — $95 million
- “Aladdin” — $91 million
- “Maleficent” — $69 million
- “Cinderella” — $67 million
- “Dumbo” — $46 million
- “Snow White” — $43 million
- “Mufasa: The Lion King” — $35 million
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It cost Disney an estimated $270 million in production and another $100 million in marketing to bring a reimagined version of “Snow White” to theaters, per The Hollywood Reporter. But it might not be too late for “Snow White” to make up for early losses.
“Mufasa: The Lion King” suffered a weak debut of $35 million, and after a nearly three-month theatrical run, the movie raked in $253 million in total domestic ticket sales and currently sits as the second-highest earning movie of the year, per Box Office Mojo.
“The success of the film will depend on whether it gets the ‘babysitter effect,’” predicted David A. Gross, a box office analyst, per The New York Times. The “babysitter effect” refers to parents’ use of movies to occupy and entertain their children.
Gross continued, “Disney knows how to support their films, and this corridor, which includes spring breaks, is a good one.”
Early critic reviews and reactions to “Snow White” are providing no favors to the movie in terms of potential earnings. The Rotten Tomatoes critics score for “Snow White” currently sits at 44%, and on IMDB it has a grim average rating of 1.8/10 stars.
The Guardian called the movie “toe-curlingly terrible” and The Wall Street Journal labeled the flick “pointless.”
But previous live-action adaptations have found box office success in the face of poor critic reviews, and “Snow White” has already experienced a softer landing among audiences — the movie currently has a 74% Rotten Tomatoes rating from moviegoers.
“Critically, Disney’s remakes have consistently been given a lukewarm reception besides the odd few. From a cinematic powerhouse like Disney, the run of critically average movies should arguably not be accepted or continued,” ScreenRant wrote in 2023.
ScreenRant continued, “However, the critical opinion has not impacted the box office of the Disney remakes and most have still done well financially. Especially since four managed to break $1 billion, with ‘The Jungle Book’ not being far off. The last five remakes have been the poorest performing, but the success of earlier ones has meant Disney has been able to largely ignore them.”
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Disney has more live-action remakes lined up
In recent years, Disney has enjoyed reliable box office success in the sequel, prequel, remake genre.
Nine of the 10 highest-grossing films of 2024 fit under the “sequel” genre, per Box Office Mojo. Disney’s “Inside Out 2,” “Deadpool & Wolverine” and “Moana 2″ all made the top 10.
“Inside Out 2” earned over $652 million domestically and was the highest-earning movie of the year, closely followed by “Deadpool & Wolverine.”
In 2023, Disney’s three highest earning films of the year — “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” — all fit under the sequel, prequel, remake genre.
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Which Disney classics are getting the live-action remake treatment next?
“Recently the industry has seen a solid string of success born out of rebooting or upgrading content from the past. This is a risk-averse strategy. You bank on content where people already have a sense of the characters, they have a sense of what the plot is, what the story is,” said Walt Hickey, a pop culture expert at FiveThirtyEight, per ABC News.
Disney has invested in the potential remake goldmine with dozens of live-action remakes already set to begin production or release in coming months.
In May, Disney will release its next live-action adaptation with “Lilo & Stitch,” followed by a long string of live-action remakes, including “Moana,” “Bambi,” “The Sword in the Stone,” “Robin Hood,” “Hercules,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and more.
