The 1937 animated feature “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” helped to establish Disney as a major Hollywood studio, but 88 years later, the rollout for a live-action reimagining of the film is off to a shaky start.
The new film, simply titled “Snow White,” is being released to limited fanfare, at least compared to other live-action versions of animated classics like 2023’s “The Little Mermaid” and 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast.”
This week, Variety confirmed that plans for the movie’s Friday premiere in Los Angeles had been “scaled back” and would not feature a red carpet press line, thus permitting actors Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot ― who play Snow White and the Evil Queen, respectively ― to attend without taking on-the-spot questions.
Disney told The Hollywood Reporter that it had opted for a “more celebratory, family-friendly afternoon event to match the tone and target audience for the film.” A representative for the movie did not respond to HuffPost’s request for further clarification.
The choice to forgo interviews, however, has drawn a fair amount of speculation from entertainment outlets, who pointed to the numerous controversies “Snow White” has weathered on its way to the big screen. Some suggested that the studio was aiming to protect Zegler, who has drawn ire from some quarters over her stance on the original 1937 film and her political statements.
The Colombian American actor, best known for her portrayal of Maria in the 2021 film adaptation of “West Side Story,” found herself the target of racist commentary after being cast as Snow White, described in the original fairy tale as having “skin as white as snow.”
Later, Disney purists were incensed after she addressed the various ways in which the live-action version would differ from the original film.
“The reality is that the cartoon was made 85 years ago, and therefore is extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power and what a woman is fit for in the world,” Zegler told Entertainment Weekly in 2022.
Around the same time, she suggested the new movie would shift its focus away from its central romance, telling ExtraTV: “There’s a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her … weird! So we didn’t do that this time.”
Since then, Zegler has slammed President Donald Trump on social media and signaled her support for Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war, seemingly putting her at odds with her co-star Gadot, who is Israeli and has mostly limited her remarks to the plight of hostages.
Zegler later apologized for her remarks about Trump. Earlier this month, she and Gadot appeared to be in good spirits as they co-presented the award for Best Visual Effects at the Oscars.
On Wednesday, Zegler won praise for her chilling performance of “Waiting on a Wish,” a new song from the movie, at a promotional event at Spain’s Alcázar de Segovia, which inspired the setting for the 1937 film.
There have been other controversies, too. Shortly after “Snow White” was announced, “Game of Thrones” actor Peter Dinklage ― who has a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia ― criticized the film’s creative team for advancing a “fucking backward story about seven dwarves living in a cave.”
Disney responded by saying that the film would instead feature “magical creatures” that are rendered via CGI.
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Whether “Snow White” will emerge unscathed from its fog of bad press remains to be seen. According to the Los Angeles Times, the film is expected to earn about $50 million at the box office in North America during its opening weekend ― a respectable figure for a family film, analysts said, even though it’s a bit lower than some of Disney’s other live-action films.