Against all odds, ‘Snow White’ arrived on the big screen this past weekend. The new live-action version of the Disney classic, directed by Marc Webb and starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, was surrounded by drama and high expectations, but the box office performance did not meet projections.
Despite its global release, marketed as ‘the most talked about movie of the year’, ‘Snow White’ fell below expectations in the local market.
How much did ‘Snow White’ raise in its first weekend in total?
Despite its questionable performance, ‘Snow White’ managed to position itself as the sixth highest-grossing film of 2025 so far. Webb’s film reached $87.3 million worldwide in its debut. Of this amount, $43 million came from theaters in the United States and Canada, while $44.3 million came from the international market. Disney had projected an opening of at least $100 million, so the film fell $12.7 million short of expectations.
It is worth noting that, despite the growing wave of rejection for Disney’s live-action remakes, they have managed to be successful in the past. The 2019 ‘The Lion King’ grossed over 1.6 billion dollars, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ from 2017 exceeded 1.2 billion, and ‘Aladdin’ from 2019 crossed the 1 billion mark. In comparison, the box office of ‘Snow White’ in its first weekend turns out to be somewhat disappointing.
Around the film revolves the ‘drama’ between alleged cracks among the co-stars, Zegler and Gadot. Since the beginning of production, the differences between both actresses have been reported by various media outlets. While Zegler has expressed her support for Palestine, Gadot has defended Israel on several occasions, and this ideological opposition has fueled rumors of tension between them, as well as polarizing the audience.
Zegler’s criticisms of the original ‘Snow White’ story were also not well received by fans, as aspects such as the costumes and makeup of the protagonists, Gadot’s performance as the villain, and Disney’s decision to make the dwarfs in the story computerized characters instead of actors with dwarfism were also rejected, in order to better match the film’s concept of realism.