Controversial Live-Action 'Snow White' Makes Major Plot Change With Latest Report

After its recently announced delay, Disney’s live-action Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs starring Rachel Zegler seems to have faded from the spotlight for now. The movie was the subject of much controversy and backlash last year due to outspoken comments from Zegler about the film and the character she’d be portraying.

Disney’s live-action remakes haven’t been very popular in the court of public opinion to begin with, with the exception of a few successes, like Cinderella (2015), Beauty and the Beast (2017), and Aladdin (2019). 2023’s The Little Mermaid remake was the subject of claims that Disney had gone “woke” in light of its colorblind casting with Hailee Bailey as Ariel.

In the midst of that, Zegler started getting hate of criticism of her own for her casting of Snow White, the princess whose skin is as “white as snow.” Zegler didn’t help matters with her opinions on the film, stating that the film wouldn’t be a traditional princess romance and that Snow White was given a lot more agency in the new film. She followed this up with comments that teased the possibility of the male love interest, played by Andrew Burnap, getting cut completely, and critics started to blast the film for its “woke feminist” ideology.

Despite the hatred in the community for the actress, Zegler saw a smash success in the theater in November, as Lucy Gray Baird in the Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Her performance earned her high praise, and it seemed as though the public had started to forget that she would be Disney’s next live-action princess. In addition, Disney announced that the film would be delayed from a 2024 release to 2025, due to re-shoots and delays with the Hollywood strikes that took up over half the year last year.

Some speculated that Disney pushing back the release was actually in response to Zegler’s controversial spotlight with an effort to give it some time to die down before the film could be released. The latest report to come from the film’s production may give that theory a little more credibility. We had recently reported that Emilia Faucher had been cast as the younger version of Snow White, but the latest report from That Park Place implies that the younger actress will actually be taking up more screen time than originally planned.

The report suggests that the film could take advantage of using more flashback sequences showing Snow White as a child, which would significantly reduce the amount of time Rachel Zegler has onscreen as Snow White. It’s unclear if this would be a conscious effort to mitigate some of the backlash that Zegler has been receiving over the last year, or a decision for more exposition and backstory for Disney’s first animated princess, but the end result would be the same.

Whether or not Disney has cast a younger actress for reshoots and flashback scenes, Zegler’s comments on the film over the last year have certainly stirred the pot, creating a situation that Disney seems to be desperately trying to recover from. Either way, if the report is true, it’s undeniable that Disney has felt the impact of its losses last year amid various controversies and is attempting to do what it can to try to make up for it. That could include adjusting the amount of time a certain controversial actress is onscreen for its latest live-action remake. 

What do you think about Disney cutting Rachel Zegler’s screen time in Snow White? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!