With Disney’s live-action Snow White remake set to hit theaters on March 21, early box office projections are painting a bleak picture. Industry tracker Quorum reports that the film is on track for a $63-$70 million domestic opening weekend, with other sources predicting $65 million.
While this would mark the highest domestic opening of Rachel Zegler’s career, surpassing her $44.6 million debut in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, it’s a far cry from the heights of Disney’s previous blockbusters.
Rachel Zegler singing in the Snow White Trailer – YouTube, Disney
The numbers look even worse when compared to other Disney live-action remakes. The Little Mermaid opened to $95.6 million domestically over three days and was still considered a financial disappointment. Disney’s The Lion King (2019) debuted with $191.77 million, and Beauty and the Beast (2017) earned $174.7 million—both surpassing $1 billion globally. By contrast, these Snow White box office projections place it closer to Maleficent (2014), which opened at $69.4 million and managed to reach $758.5 million worldwide, though its sequel failed to turn a profit.
The reason for Snow White’s dire outlook goes beyond box office comparisons. The film has suffered from catastrophic marketing missteps and a backlash that has been building for nearly two years. Both of the movie’s trailers have been obliterated on YouTube, each surpassing one million dislikes. The teaser trailer, released in mid-2024, currently holds 1.5 million dislikes to just 101,478 likes. The official trailer, which debuted in December, has 1,015,508 dislikes and only 40,530 likes. A Christmas Day sneak peek featuring Zegler’s new song Waiting on a Wish fared no better, earning 45,000 dislikes to just 4,875 likes.
Dislike ratio for the Snow White Teaser Trailer as of 02/03/25
The apathy surrounding the film has been worsened by its controversial star. Rachel Zegler has alienated audiences with her string of inflammatory statements and erratic behavior. Zegler has openly mocked the original 1937 Snow White film, calling it outdated and misogynistic. She further inflamed tensions by using the Snow White trailer’s release to promote her political views, including advocating for Palestine. She also made disparaging remarks about Donald Trump and his supporters following the 2024 U.S. election. Zegler’s post-election comments, in which she stated, “may Trump and his supporters never know peace,” sparked widespread backlash and forced a public apology. The validity and sincerity of that apology has been called into question many times.
Adding to the film’s woes is its massive production cost, reportedly ballooning to over $300 million due to reshoots. Disney’s decision to overhaul its depiction of the Seven Dwarfs, replacing them with a multiracial group of non-dwarf actors, came after heavy criticism from Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage, who stated that depicting the dwarves as actual dwarves would be somehow offensive.
Peter Dinklage via The Graham Norton Show YouTube
Despite initially dismissing the leaked photos as fake, Disney later admitted the images reflected their original concept, which they abandoned following the backlash in favor of seven CGI characters who have become the laughing stock of Hollywood.
Rachel Zegler’s box office track record also offers little hope for Snow White. Her recent film, Y2K, bombed at the box office with a pitiful $4.2 million total gross. The combination of her unpopularity and a lack of enthusiasm for the project has led to a marketing nightmare. Even a series of viral parody videos mocking the movie by setting savage audience comments to music outperformed the film’s trailers in engagement.
Rachel Zegler as Snow White in Snow White (2025), Walt Disney Studios
At present, Snow White looks poised to suffer not only from poor box office numbers, but also from the worst possible outcome: audience apathy. While other Disney flops like The Little Mermaid at least garnered attention through controversy, Snow White seems to be losing the battle for relevance entirely. With a sky-high budget and sinking public interest, Disney may be facing one of its most catastrophic box office disasters in years.
What’s your Snow White box office prediction? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
